The Vice President of Information Technology is the university’s Chief Information Officer (CIO). The Vice President provides university leadership for information technology at UMBC and serves on the executive leadership team of the university. The Vice President is responsible for providing information technology services in support of teaching and scholarship, research computing, and administrative support. Reporting directly to the President, the Vice President is responsible for strategic planning and implementation, coordination, budget, personnel, and policy related to information technology at UMBC.
Mr. Jack Suess is an alum of UMBC and has worked at UMBC since 1981. He holds a B.A. Mathematics and M.S. Operations Analysis. Throughout the years he has taught a number of courses at UMBC, including Computer Organization and Assembly Programming, Unix System Administration, and Computers and Society. He has led UMBC information technology since 1997 and was appointed UMBC CIO in 2000. In 2002, he was made a direct report to the President and was named Vice President in 2005. His CV can be found here.
Mr. Suess has been an active researcher in advanced networking and was PI on UMBC’s 1997 NSF grant for vBNS networking and was the PI on a 2014 NSF cyber infrastructure grant to upgrade the network to 100 Gbits. In addition he has been co-PI on a NSF grant to increase women in IT through improved access to global resources and a state grant for broadening IT skills across all majors. He is a regular speaker on data analytics for student success, cybersecurity, identity management, and technology standards for teaching and learning.
Selected UMBC IT Achievements:
- 1997 – UMBC selected among the first 50 universities in the country to participate in the National Science Foundation high-speed network program, vBNS.
- 1999 – UMBC selected in the top-50 “most wired” universities by Wiired magazine.
- 2000 – UMBC among twelve institutions selected to participate in the Internet2 “Early Adopters” program to bring up advanced middleware services.
- 2003 – UMBC selected 25th among universities in the “most wireless” by Intel and Cisco.
- 2014 – Selected among the first 100 universities to be part of the National Science Foundation CC*IIE program to advance 100Gb technology.
Mr. Suess serves in a number of national information technology leadership activities, these include:
- 2014-2020 – IMSglobal Board member
- 2014-2019 – IMSglobal Board Chair.
- 2017-2018 – EDUCAUSE Board Chair
- 2014-2018 – EDUCAUSE Board of Directors.
- 2014-present – Internet2 NET+ Advisory committee
- 2014-2022- Internet2 CE-PAG Advisory committee
- 2013-2018 – Board member of Center for Higher Education CIOs (CHECS)
- 2012-2018 – NSTIC and IDESG Board of Directors
- 2011-2013 InCommon Federation Chair
- 2010 & 2014 InCommon Federation Vice-Chair
- 2010 EDUCAUSE National Conference Program Committee Chair
- 2009-2012 Internet2 Board of Trustees
- 2009-2014 – InCommon Steering Committee
- 2007-2010 Internet2 Advisory Council – Applications, Middleware, and Services Advisory Council
- 2007-2009 EDUCAUSE Network Policy Council
- 2007-2012 REN-ISAC Executive Advisory Group (Chair)
- 2006-2010 Microsoft Higher Education Advisory Group
- 2001-2007 EDUCAUSE/Internet2 Security Task Force (chair 2003-2006)
Mr. Suess has served on a number of NSF and NIH review committees and is a frequent speaker on technology, especially security and identity management.