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, Broadcasting with more than a dozen public radio stations  and two PBS stations, 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 and Intel Ranked WMU as the #2 most “unwired” campus in the nation. 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.   Prior to WMU she was at the University of Arizona for twelve years leading the Systems, help desk and supercomputing teams. 
 
At Washington State University (WSU) where she will be completing her first year, Ms. Murali and her team are actively working to build super high speed connectivity for faculty, Collaborate on bringing High Performance Computing to WSU, pursue a core systems application for the Student Information Systems (SIS), create a new IT funding model, build a new wireless campus, upgrade IT facilities and fundraise for the many IT needs.

She is active in a number of local and national organizations and has presented in many conferences as a keynote speaker and participated as a panelist. 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.