Dan Huttenlocher, the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and vice provost of Cornell Tech, who positioned the growing campus as one of the most forward-thinking and interdisciplinary in the nation, will be stepping down Aug. 1 to become the inaugural dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s new Schwarzman College of Computing.

Provost Michael Kotlikoff is forming a committee to conduct an international search, and university administrators expect to name a replacement before Huttenlocher departs.

“Dan has done a remarkable job situating Cornell Tech for future growth, and we are in a tremendous position to attract the next visionary leader of Cornell Tech,” said President Martha E. Pollack. “We congratulate Dan on this exciting new opportunity at his alma mater.”

As dean, Huttenlocher guided Cornell Tech through its planning process, overseeing an innovative curricular approach to graduate education and an ambitious construction project for the campus, which opened in September 2017 on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Huttenlocher also built relationships with leading philanthropists to ensure Cornell Tech’s continued success. Working with leadership in Computing and Information Science (CIS), Cornell Engineering, the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and Cornell Law School, he recruited world-renowned faculty.

“Through his enormous efforts in the conception and planning of Cornell Tech, followed by his service for more than seven years as the founding dean, Dan has built an incredible success for which we are extraordinarily grateful,” Kotlikoff said. “The work being done by the faculty and students at Cornell Tech and the Jacobs Institute, the partnering faculty in Cornell and Technion academic departments, and our industry and community partnerships will continue to propel the campus forward to meet the challenges of the digital world.”

Under Huttenlocher’s leadership, Cornell Tech has fostered research collaborations across Cornell’s campuses, hands-on and socially impactful learning opportunities for students, and partnerships with industry and New York City.

“When I take a step back to look at what we are creating together at Cornell Tech I am simply amazed,” Huttenlocher said in an email sent Feb. 21 to students, faculty and staff at Cornell Tech. “It is hard to bring together disciplines as disparate as computing, engineering, business, law and design, and to integrate academic fundamentals with real-world engagement. But it is so rewarding, after working on the conception of the project and serving as dean for over seven years, to see the tremendous potential of our approach being realized more and more every day – all the more so in this age when rapid advances in computing are having substantial economic and societal consequences.”

Huttenlocher, who served as dean of CIS before his appointment as Cornell Tech’s founding dean in 2012, had previously worked at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and served as chief technology officer of Intelligent Markets. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and his master’s and doctorate from MIT. He joined Cornell’s faculty in 1988, and currently serves as a director of Amazon, Corning Inc. and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.