Associate Vice President and Deputy Chief Information Officer Tony Opheim will begin a new role as interim vice president and chief information officer of WSU Information Technology Services in February 2023 following the departure of Sasi Pillay.
Pillay has accepted a new role at University of Nevada, Reno, but will remain at WSU until February to assist with the transition. Pillay was named University of Nevada, Reno’s new vice president of ITS and chief information officer today.
Opheim brings more than 30 years of higher education IT experience to the position.
“I am quite honored and excited to serve as WSU’s interim CIO and VP for ITS,” Opheim said. “Under Dr. Pillay’s leadership ITS has reached a higher level of maturity and gained the trust and respect of the WSU community. I will work to advance these positive efforts and partnerships through thoughtful dialogue about important topics such as IT roles, responsibilities and shared governance.”
Over the course of his seven years at WSU, Pillay led efforts to overhaul WSU’s online defenses and improve many aspects of the university’s IT infrastructure, including research computing, and telecommunications.
During the pandemic, Pillay and his ITS team were actively involved in the deployments of Workday and the Learning Management System, Canvas, as well as the design and implementation of the loaner laptop program supporting the transition to remote learning and teaching.
“It is with mixed emotions that I announce my departure from WSU,” Pillay said. “Many of the successes we have achieved together here at WSU are a blueprint that can be adopted at UNR and other higher education institutions around the country.”
