Edward Seidel, the University of Illinois System’s vice president for economic development and innovation, on Wednesday was named the 28th president of the University of Wyoming.
Seidel, who will take office in July, has spent nearly four years in his current role and more than 13 years with the U of I System. As vice president for economic development and innovation, he was a key member of the team that launched the Discovery Partners Institute (DPI) and Illinois Innovation Network (IIN), a $1 billion project to develop a technology workforce and research center in Chicago connected to a network of innovation hubs across the state.
“I am excited for Ed as he embarks on this new adventure and I am thankful for his leadership in helping transform IIN and DPI from concept to reality,” U of I System President Tim Killeen said. “In Ed, Wyoming is getting a thought leader and an innovator. For me, though, this is bittersweet. I will miss working side by side with Ed every bit as much as I am pleased to see him move into this important new role.”
Seidel was appointed interim vice president for research for the U of I System in 2016, and assumed the position permanently the next year, when it was renamed vice president for economic development and innovation. In this role, he has focused on harnessing the research and education capacity of the U of I System’s three universities to drive innovation and economic development across Illinois.
“This was an incredibly difficult decision to leave the U of I System since it is one of the places I have felt most at home during my career,” Seidel said. “It was made even more difficult by the progress that many of our initiatives have realized in recent weeks, including Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s release of state capital funds for IIN and DPI, but I know that our teams leading both of these initiatives will continue to move them forward. This amazing opportunity at Wyoming presented itself and it felt like the right next move in my career.”
Seidel was among the leaders of the team that created and developed DPI, which prepares students for high-demand tech jobs and conducts applied research at its Chicago headquarters, and IIN. The latter is a system of hubs anchored by Illinois’ public universities to catalyze economic growth through innovation and workforce development. Seidel received the 2018 Business Leadership Award of the America-Israel Chamber of Commerce for his work in building DPI and IIN.
“Ed’s impact at this university has been both deep and far-reaching through his years of leadership and scholarship,” said Robert J. Jones, chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “When you look through the list of projects where he played critical roles – from the Illinois Innovation Network and Discovery Partners Institute to Blue Waters, the Midwest Big Data Hub and the study of black holes and gravitational waves – you see his ability to think big, to build coalitions, and to deliver on ambitious promises. While we will miss him greatly here in Illinois, Wyoming is gaining not only an excellent leader and scholar, but a wonderful person.”
Killeen said a smooth transition plan, including an interim appointment and eventual search, will be put in place well before Seidel leaves his current office this summer.
Seidel is a fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the 2006 Sidney Fernbach Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engingeers, the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2001 Gordon Bell Prize, and the 1998 Heinz Billing Prize of the Max Planck Society.
At Urbana-Champaign, he is a Founder Professor in the Department of Physics, a professor in the Department of Astronomy, a research professor in the Department of Computer Science, a senior research scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and a faculty affiliate at the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment.
Seidel first came to Urbana-Champaign as a postdoctoral researcher at NCSA under the center’s creator and director Larry Smarr in 1989, and in 2014 became NCSA’s director.
In between, he served as senior vice president for research and innovation at Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow; was assistant director at the National Science Foundation, directing the Office of Cyberinfrastructure and leading the Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences; led the Center for Computation & Technology at Louisiana State University; and directed the numerical relativity group at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Germany.
“There is no question that this place transformed my career, beginning with my time here as a postdoc, and made me who I am today,” Seidel said. “I will always hold the U of I System in high regard, and cherish the impact it had on me and the wealth of memories and relationships I cultivated here.”
