“It is truly a great honor to be recognized by the IBJ and TechPoint, and it truly is a recognition for the whole of the IU IT team,” Wheeler said. “I very much enjoy helping lead a great and very broad team across all of IU.”
The IBJ and TechPoint present the award to top chief technology officers who play vital roles in making Indiana businesses, institutions and not-for-profit groups successful, according to a press release.
Wheeler is the leader of university-wide IT services for all eight IU campuses and has helped elevate the University into a technological leader.
Wheeler said IU is fortunate to have had consistent leadership in IT for 18 years, enabling them to work on all aspects of IT, from supercomputers for research to new learning spaces, such as the new School of Global and International Studies building.
“This outstanding and highly deserved honor reflects Brad’s tireless commitment to continuing to build IU’s stature as a nationwide leader in the use and application of information technology toward supporting the scholarly mission of the University,” IU President Michael McRobbie said in a press release.
Wheeler is a professor of information systems in the Kelley School of Business and was named vice president for IT and CIO in 2007. His past projects include leading the development of open-source software and service collaborations, including the Kuali for administrative systems and the Sakai Project for teaching and learning software.
Wheeler said he is looking forward to the dedication of IU’s $15 million Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative in partnership with Sony/Memon that will digitize 400,000 audio and visual recordings.
“Brad Wheeler always finds efficiencies, is amazingly strategic in his foresight and conceives of new models to improve IT resources at IU and for higher education as a whole,” said Stacy Morrone, IU associate vice president for learning technologies and professor of educational psychology at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis. “He is the ideal CIO: forward-looking, transformative, collaborative.”
The award adds to Wheeler’s lengthy list of accolades, including the 2012 Chronicle for Higher Education’s “12 Tech Innovators Who Are Transforming Campuses”, Government Technology’s “Top 25 Doers in 2012, Dreamers and Drivers in Public Sector Innovation” and CIO Magazine’s CIO 100 award in 2009 and 2012.
