Professor Allen Renear has assumed the interim deanship of GSLIS, effective immediately. He brings to the position extensive administrative experience in higher education as well as more than 20 years of experience as an information professional.
GSLIS is in good hands with Renear, whose depth and breadth of experience make him well suited for the position. He has served as a member of the GSLIS faculty since 2001 and recently concluded a three-year term as associate dean for research, during which he expanded the School’s grant funding base to over $16 million in award dollars. He also has been an active member of the GSLIS Executive Committee, a senior advisory group to the dean, during most years of his tenure.
Renear received an A.B. from Bowdoin College and a Ph.D. (1988) from Brown University. At Brown, he began his career in information technology, serving as a user services specialist, senior consultant/analyst, and senior academic planning analyst prior to becoming director of the Scholarly Technology Group, an applied research, development, and consulting group focusing on the application of information technology to academic research, instruction, and scholarly communication.
Linda Smith, associate dean for academic programs, supports Renear’s appointment, stating that, “Allen’s demonstrated abilities in innovative problem solving, strategic planning, and budget and personnel management will serve GSLIS well. His effective working relationships with all GSLIS stakeholders—faculty, staff, students, campus administrators, alumni, and other members of the profession—will contribute to his success as he assumes this leadership role.”
Renear is a highly respected scholar, having served as president of the Association for Computers and the Humanities, distinguished visiting fellow at the Oxford University Computing Unit, member of the advisory board of the Text Encoding Initiative, and first chair of the Open eBook Publication Structure Working Group (now IDPF/ePUB). He currently teaches courses in information modeling and digital publishing, and his research focuses on the application of logic-based formal ontologies to problems in data curation and the foundation of information systems.