PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Ravi Pendse, currently vice president and chief information officer at Wichita State University, has been named vice president for computing and information services (CIS) at Brown University and will serve as the University’s chief information officer. He will begin his work in Providence on Sept. 1, 2013.

A specialist in computer networking and information technology in higher education, Pendse has served in a number of information technology areas, from library systems to digital classroom design and comprehensive campus IT planning. In addition to his administrative duties and interests, he is a tenured full professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Wichita State, regularly teaches courses, and has won awards for teaching excellence.

“Ravi Pendse has devoted his career to understanding information technologies and to envisioning how they might best be shaped to support research, instruction, and campus life,” said Brown Provost Mark Schlissel, to whom Pendse will report. “Robust and evolving IT capabilities will be crucially important to the University’s new strategic plan. I am pleased to have Ravi as a colleague and member of the senior administration.”

As head of CIS, Pendse will lead a staff that maintains IT services across campus and develops strategies for new technologies. The CIS portfolio covers instructional and academic technologies; policies and programs that ensure privacy and data security, including full implementation of Shibboleth authentication; web support; network operations, including WIFI, mobile computing, and accounts management; telecommunications, teleconferencing, and video; business continuity and IT disaster preparedness; and user support and training for the entire campus community. Pendse will serve as a member of the President’s Cabinet and the Executive Committee.

Ravi Pendse

Pendse is a graduate of Osmania University in India, earning his Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering in 1982. He came to the United States for graduate study at Wichita State (M.S., 1985, Ph.D., 1994, both in electrical engineering). From 1989 to 1992 he served as an assistant professor in the College of Engineering and Technology at Northern Arizona University before returning to Wichita State to complete his graduate studies and join the engineering faculty. He began as assistant professor and director of the Cisco lab in 1994, advancing to full professor and director of the Advanced Networking Research Center in 2005. He is also a Wichita State Cisco Fellow. Pende’s research programs have attracted nearly $22 million in support, and he has presented more than 140 papers at conferences and in peer-reviewed journals.

In 2005 Pendse was named associate provost and chief information officer. His duties, particularly as associate provost, covered a broad range from supervising international education and the study abroad office to managing faculty sabbaticals, promotion, tenure, and grievances. From August 2009 to June 2011, while still serving as associate provost, Pendse was named interim dean of university libraries. Among the projects he managed was a Music and Language Innovation Center, created from the observation that music and language students have parallel uses for innovative technology — language labs, recording studios, audio-equipped study spaces.

As vice president for information technology since 2011 and chief information officer since 2005, Pendse has led a number of successful interdepartmental collaborations that have developed a broad implementation of IT resources on campus. Wichita State became 100 percent wireless in August 2007, connecting all academic and administrative buildings and residence halls. He also led a faculty task force that developed IT-equipped classrooms and standardized the user interface. Other initiatives include online security, an enterprise information network, mobile-ready computing, lecture capture and other classroom media, and greater efficiency in an era of tight budgets.

Brown’s history and reputation in academic computing were a strong attraction, Pendse said, but he also sees a significant opportunity to support technology-enabled economic innovations that would benefit the region.

“On a campus where exceptional students study and work with highly accomplished faculty, a forward-thinking IT operation can catalyze new ideas, new techniques, and discoveries across and within the disciplines,” Pendse said. “I am excited by this opportunity at Brown and am eager to begin.”