Vice President for Information Services & Chief Information Officer

Ms. Viji Murali is Vice President for Information Services and CIO at Washington State University. She is responsible for Academic and Administrative computing, Convergent Technologies (Telecommunications, Wired and wireless networks, VoIP, Video), Distance Learning Technologies as well as Strategic planning and policy development for the IT enterprise. 

She was previously Vice President for Information Technology and CIO at Western Michigan University (WMU) for eight years. 

During her tenure at WMU major initiatives were launched for faculty such as the Laptop initiative, Teaching with Technology grants, and Internet2 grants. In January 2002 WMU became the largest public research university to be completely wireless. This implementation was profiled as one of the examples of best practices by Gartner Inc, EDUCAUSE and Cisco. In 2003 Intel rated WMU 8th most "unwired campus" and in 2005 our ranking went up to number two in the same study. In 2002/2003 WMU partnered with California state university at Monterey Bay (CSUMB) to obtain federal funding for two initiatives a) Research in wireless technologies b) Creation of a Wireless Institute. In 2004 WMU obtained funding for a federal grant for the College of Health and Human Services for "Wireless technologies in Health Care" initiative.  She was the project champion for a new Student Information System that was successfully completed in 2006 as well as SUN's JES suite of products that includes SUN's Identity management solution. Prior to WMU she was at the University of Arizona for twelve years in various administrative positions. 
 
Ms. Murali is active in a number of local and national organizations and has presented in local and national conferences as a keynote speaker. She was profiled in 2003 for her leadership in both the CIO and CXO magazines. In October 2005 she was given the "visionary award" for Excellence in Technology by the Governor of Michigan. 
 
She holds a B.S in Biology and Chemistry, an M.S in Organic Chemistry, four years of Graduate Research Experience in Organic Chemistry all from India and M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Arizona, Tucson.