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SALT LAKE CITY — Daniel Reed, a computational science scholar at the University of Iowa and a former Microsoft executive, has been named senior vice president of academic affairs at the University of Utah.
Reed succeeds Ruth V. Watkins, who served in the position from 2013 to 2018, until she was appointed the 16th president of the U.
Watkins described Reed as "an exceptional addition to the university’s leadership team and the thought leadership of our state," according to a prepared statement released Monday.
"He is a talented scholar and administrator and the perfect fit in our efforts to become one of the country’s premier public universities. I look forward to working closely with him in the years ahead," Watkins said.
Reed will start on July 1.
Reed holds the University of Iowa's computational science and bioinformatics chair and has been a professor of computer science, electrical and computer engineering and medicine.
He was Iowa's vice president for research and economic development from 2012-2017.
According to a post Monday by University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld, Reed "stepped down from the position in the fall to focus on national research and competitiveness policy and developing new directions in computer and computational science."
Last fall, however, Harreld wrote that "a recent health event" contributed to Reed's decision to step down from the administrative post.
Reed declined to comment further on Harreld's statement, according to U. spokesman Christopher Nelson.
A former corporate vice president and technology policy leader at Microsoft, Reed was founding director of the North Carolina Renaissance Computing Institute. He was also department head and director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois.
Reed is chairman of the Department of Energy's Advanced Scientific Computing Advisory committee and leads the steering committee for the National Science Foundation's Midwest Big Data Hub.
"Utah is a great public research university with a deep commitment to student success, breakthrough research and scholarship, effective economic development, and insightful partnerships that serve our society and health, and improve our world,” Reed said in a prepared statement.
“It is a university with an even more extraordinary future. As they say on campus, it truly is ‘Imagine U.’ I am excited to partner with its students, faculty and staff, and the residents of Utah, as we build that future.”
Reed’s most recent scholarship has focused on challenges and opportunities related to cloud and edge computing in both academic and corporate research settings.
According to news reports, Reed was a finalist for provost of Kansas State University in March; a finalist for University of Nebraska-Lincoln chancellor in 2016 and a finalist for provost of Florida State University in 2015.
Following an on-campus public interview in Tallahassee, Politico.com reported that Reed "is a native of a rural Arkansas town with a population of 800 and the son of parents who didn’t make it to middle school."
Reed is a graduate of Missouri University of Science and Technology and earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in computer science from Purdue University.
He also serves on the National Academies Technical Advisory Board for the Army Research Laboratory. He previously served on the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the Federal Communications Commission’s Technical Advisory Committee and the National Archives Electronic Records Advisory Committee. He has also chaired the board of directors of the Computing Research Association.
