PULLMAN, Wash. – Viji Murali, vice president and CIO for Information Services (IS) at Washington State University, has been elected to serve a one-year term on the Idaho Regional Optical Network (IRON) Board of Directors as president and CEO beginning in January.
Due to these added duties, she has asked Associate Vice President Tony Opheim to serve as deputy CIO effective Aug. 1. He will be responsible for overall operations of IS and will continue to report to Murali.
“WSU was a founding charter member of IRON and being able to serve in a leadership capacity will strengthen WSU’s role and broaden our reach into the national networking environment,” said Murali. “Information Services has long needed a deputy CIO and asking Tony to serve in that capacity was part of the strategy in bringing him to WSU.”
IRON is a not-for-profit corporation that facilitates advanced high-speed optical networking among institutions across the Pacific Northwest. Participants include institutions of research, education, health care, state government and other partner organizations.
Murali has long been a champion of building out and supporting super high speed network connectivity and high performance computing for WSU faculty and researchers. She will begin transitioning now to learn more of the role and expectations of serving as the IRON president and CEO.
Opheim joined WSU IS in January 2012 as an associate vice president. He has more than 20 years of higher education information technology experience and served in multiple IT leadership roles at the University of Idaho, including as interim CIO for two years.