Jim Davis is the PI for CESMII from UCLA as well as Principal CIO Advisor and member of the Governance Board. At UCLA, Jim is Vice Provost IT & Chief Academic Technology Officer – an executive leadership role focused on UCLA’s academic research and education mission. Jim has broad oversight of campus-wide planning, governance, and strategic investment of IT and manages the Office of Information Technology (OIT). Through OIT, Jim has oversight responsibility for the Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute, the Institute for Digital Research and Education, the Information System Associates, and the UCLA Office of the Chief Privacy Officer.

Jim has past work experience is with Amoco Chemicals. He is Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and is currently on the Board of Governors of the Manufacturing Leadership Council, the Leadership Council for Mforesight: Alliance for Manufacturing Foresight and the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Council. Jim led the Mforesight report on Cybersecurity for Manufacturers. He is a past Chair of the Board for the Corporation of Education Network Initiatives in California. Jim is also a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UCLA, where his research interests are in the areas of AI, data analysis, decision support, and intelligent systems.

With over 30-years’ experience in technology-based engineering research and application, he has been involved with research, development, and deployment of information technology solutions in a variety of industrial applications. Prior to Jim’s appointment, he served as Chief Information Officer/Associate Provost for Information Technology at The Ohio State University. At Ohio State, he had responsibility for institutional IT planning, instructional technology, policy, faculty/staff/student IT advisory committees, and all central infrastructure and support services for both academic and administrative applications. He worked extensively with the Ohio Supercomputer Center, the Ohio Academic and Research Network (OARnet), the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), and Internet2 on computing, network, research, and educational initiatives.

He holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Northwestern University and a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.