The University of Utah has named Manish Parashar, director of the Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute, chair in Computational Science and Engineering, and Presidential Professor in the Kalhert School of Computing, as its inaugural Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer.

In this role, Parashar will represent the university and advise U President Taylor Randall as the institution navigates various AI initiatives. Parashar will lead the university’s AI strategy, advance research and translation initiatives, foster collaborations across academic and industry sectors and ensure ethical and responsible AI efforts in alignment with institutional missions.

“We are excited about the advancement of artificial intelligence initiatives at our institution, in the state of Utah and beyond,” Randall said. “We are fortunate to have Dr. Parashar’s expertise and talent leading out for the university, and I am confident that his service in this role will greatly enhance the U’s standing as a hub for innovation and excellence.”

Parashar started serving in the new position on Feb. 10. He reports directly to U Provost Mitzi M. Montoya.

Under Parashar’s leadership, the U launched its Responsible AI Initiative (One-U RAI) in October 2023 with a $100 million investment and a goal to support AI research with real-world impact in three areas where the university has deep expertise: the environment, health care and wellness, and teaching and learning.

One-U RAI aims to catalyze transdisciplinary excellence in responsible AI at the U by bringing together the use-inspired/applied AI research and technological expertise, advanced cyberinfrastructure and translational workforce needed to position the U as a regional and national leader.  As an all-of-the-U initiative, One-U RAI brought together faculty members from departments across campus to serve in fast-action working groups to help define priorities and develop a blueprint for each thrust area.

One-U RAI made its first set of Faculty Fellow, Postdoctoral Fellow and Distinguished Visitor awards last fall, and faculty cluster hiring is expected to ramp up later in 2025 and in the years to come. Last month, One-U RAI led the launch of the One-Utah Responsible Community Consortium to provide a forum for academia, government, industry and the community to engage in the responsible development and use of AI.

“When used effectively and responsibly, AI can be a very powerful tool,” Parashar said at the time of the project launch. “It can help us address problems that can impact every citizen of the state and country. Harnessing this tool will allow us to break new research ground while training our students and creating a workforce that is prepared with an essential skill set.”

Parashar recently completed an appointment at the National Science Foundation, where he served as Office Director of the NSF Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure, as well as co-chair of the National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee (NSTC) on the Future Advanced Computing Ecosystem and the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Task Force (NAIRR). Parashar also served at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) as Assistant Director for Strategic Computing in 2020, where he led the development of a national strategy for the future computing ecosystem. He later served as a consultant at OSTP in 2023-2024 overseeing the execution of the NAIRR Pilot. His research interests are in the broad areas of parallel and distributed computing and computational and data-enabled science and engineering.

Parashar is the founding chair of the IEEE Technical Community on High Performance Computing (TCHPC) and serves on the editorial boards and organizing committees of several journals and international conferences and workshops. He has received many awards for his research and leadership, including most recently the 2023 IEEE Computer Society Sidney Fernbach Award, 2023 Achievement Award in High Performance Distributed Computing and the 2024 CRA Distinguished Service Award. He is a Fellow of AAAS, ACM and IEEE.