Founding Dean
Website Vanderbilt University
Founding Dean of the College of Connected Computing
Nashville, Tennessee
“Of all the factors shaping society, few are more influential than the rapid emergence of advanced computing, AI, and data science. To continue to carry out our mission, prepare all our students for their careers, and advance research across the university, Vanderbilt must contribute even more to the study, understanding, and innovative application of these fast-changing disciplines. Our aim is to make Vanderbilt a global leader in these fields, ensuring our continued academic excellence and capacity for world-changing innovation.”
— Daniel Diermeier, Chancellor
Vanderbilt University, globally renowned for its transformative education and research, seeks an innovative leader and accomplished scholar to serve as the inaugural dean of a new College of Connected Computing, the university’s first new college since 1981. Vanderbilt is forging a bold and distinct strategic path to meet the growing demand for degrees in technological fields and advance research in rapidly evolving computing-related disciplines. The inaugural dean will be afforded the unique opportunity to establish an interdisciplinary and cross-cutting college in an ambitious academic community focused on excellence, innovation, and bold ideas, as evidenced by the university’s motto, Crescere aude or “dare to grow.”
The new College of Connected Computing will collaborate with all of Vanderbilt’s schools and colleges to advance breakthrough discoveries and strengthen computing education through a “computing for all” approach. Students will have the opportunity to learn and practice a fundamental set of core computing, analytics, data science, and AI competencies relevant to their disciplines and be positioned to leverage advanced computing effectively to address some of society’s most pressing challenges. The new college will be resourced by a significant start-up investment to support the founding dean’s work to shape and design the organizational structure as the college evolves over time, which will include the hiring of new faculty and staff during the college’s foundational years. This will allow the university to expand on its groundbreaking discoveries at the intersections of computing and other disciplines and contribute even more to the study, understanding, and innovative application of fast-changing computing disciplines.
The founding dean will establish a college that aims to safeguard Vanderbilt’s robust reputation for academic excellence, radical collaboration, and capacity for world-changing innovation. Working in partnership with colleagues throughout the university, the founding dean will build upon Vanderbilt’s strong programs to catapult the university to the forefront of breakthrough discovery and innovation in key areas of computing across a wide range of disciplines that capitalize on advanced computational methods. In launching this new college, the inaugural dean will provide students with the highest-caliber educational opportunities at the intersection of these pathbreaking fields. The dean will advance a vision for connected computing at Vanderbilt and position the college as a hub of university collaboration and innovation through active listening and communication, managerial sophistication, financial acumen, interpersonal and political skills, effective fundraising, and commitment to inclusion and shared governance.
A search committee has been formed and will be supported in this recruitment by Isaacson, Miller, the national search firm. Confidential inquiries, applications, and nominations may be sent in confidence to:
Vanderbilt University is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. Women, minorities, people with disabilities and protected veterans are encouraged to apply.
