Ben Maddox, the chief academic technology officer at New York University, has been named chief information officer for Cornell’s Ithaca campus and Cornell Tech, Vice President and Chief Global Information Officer Curtis L. Cole announced Sept. 15. Maddox will begin his new role November 6.

“We are very excited to welcome Ben to Cornell,” Cole said. “He brings energy and experience to the job that fit well into the new vision for IT@Cornell. And his values align beautifully with Cornell’s mission-driven culture.”

As CIO for the Ithaca campus and Cornell Tech, Maddox aims to create a more agile and innovative IT environment across all the colleges and administrative units. He will provide strategic and operational leadership for Cornell Tech, the campus IT service groups and Cornell Information Technologies. Key goals include investments in classroom technologies, modernizing student and financial systems, expanding research activity, evolving the data architecture, governance, and analytics strategy and delivering more efficient and effective services overall.

Maddox will also collaborate closely with the CIO for Weill Cornell Medicine, Vipin V. Kamath, to coordinate common solutions across the campuses, particularly in administration and research. Both CIOs will report to Cole.

“I am excited to welcome Ben and look forward to learning from his diverse experience,” Kamath said. “Ben's enthusiasm and unique global perspective promise to enrich our collective journey. Together, we will not just merge paths but expand our horizons.”

Maddox, who has a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania, researched Cornell’s history, internationalization and decision-making as part of his studies.

“In doing so, I spent time in Ithaca, Doha and New York City,” Maddox said. “I knew then and know now what an honor it would be to make a contribution to the Cornell community and mission. It is with gratitude and enthusiasm that I join the Cornell team.”

At New York University, Maddox served in department, school and provost units before moving to information technology, where he led client services, desktop services and IT communications. He advanced to leading the team planning all IT aspects of the Abu Dhabi campus as the inaugural CIO, then implemented global services across all NYU locations as the deputy chief global technology officer. Shifting focus to teaching and learning, he established a campuswide instructional technology governance strategy as NYU’s first chief instructional technology officer. Most recently, he was leading the teaching, learning and research technology efforts as the chief academic technology officer.

In addition to his Ed.D., Maddox received a B.A. in political science from Baylor University and an M.A. in education and cognitive science from NYU. He also teaches master’s and doctoral courses on change leadership, innovation and instructional design and advises doctoral candidates at NYU.

Beth Goelzer is the director of customer experience for Cornell Information Technologies.