Dear UMass community,
I am delighted to announce Keith Marzullo has been selected as the next dean of the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS), effective July 1, 2025. He is a renowned computer scientist, educator and policy leader with a passion for fostering interdisciplinary collaboration. I look forward to his contributions to the university’s strategic initiatives and his innovative approach to student engagement and success.
Keith’s extensive knowledge and experience will be invaluable as he continues building on the university’s 60 years of academic excellence in computer science and informatics. That legacy includes the awarding of the 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award to professor emeritus Andrew Barto for his work developing the conceptual and algorithmic foundations of a branch of artificial intelligence known as reinforcement learning (RL). Our deep bench of CICS faculty includes 20 ACM Fellows, 11 IEEE Fellows, and 36 NSF CAREER Award winners.
It is also an inspiring time, as CICS celebrates the 10th anniversary of when the school was elevated to a college in 2015, and prepares for the opening of its new building to serve its 2,000 undergraduate, 400 master’s and 300 doctoral students as a hub for community, collaboration and innovative research. Keith will spearhead the creation of an integrated academic and research space that accommodates our rapid growth, serves as a destination for our community and enables the next big ideas in computing and technology.
Keith comes to UMass Amherst from the University of Maryland (UMD), where he has served as dean of the College of Information since 2016. During his tenure, the college grew from 500 students to over 2,600, with the faculty doubling in size. The first undergraduate major in the college, the B.S. in information science, launched in 2016 and is now the second largest and one of the most diverse STEM majors on the UMD campus. His work also contributed to the significant expansion of public-private partnerships at the university.
Prior to his time at UMD, Keith served as director of the National Coordination Program for Networking and Information Technology in the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House. He also spent five years at the National Science Foundation, where he directed the Division of Computer and Network Systems in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate. He served as chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego for five years, as a faculty member at Cornell University and taught at the University of Tromsø in Norway.
Keith received his bachelor’s degree in physics from Occidental College in Los Angeles and earned both an M.S. in applied physics and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford.
I would like to thank the faculty, staff and students, as well as academic leaders from across campus, who participated in the search process. I am likewise grateful to all members of the Dean of CICS Search Advisory Committee for their commitment and dedication to this search. I applaud the hard work and thoughtful leadership of committee co-chairs Sanjay Raman, dean of the College of Engineering, and Laura Vandenberg, associate vice chancellor and vice provost for research and engagement.
I want to express my gratitude to Laura Haas for her service as the dean of CICS for the past eight years and the strong foundation she built for the college. Her incredibly successful tenure as the first permanent dean of CICS has resulted in a 60% increase in undergraduate and graduate enrollment. She has brought in millions of dollars of funding for scholarships to increase the enrollment of women and underrepresented students in computing and has overseen the development of programming and curriculum to promote inclusivity and a sense of belonging.
I deeply appreciate Laura’s dedication and am grateful that she will continue to be part of the college as a faculty member following a one-year sabbatical.
Please join me in welcoming Keith to the UMass Amherst community.
All my best,
Fouad Abd-El-Khalick
Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs