Announcing the winners of the 2023 EdScoop 50 Awards

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Edward “Ed” Aractingi is William & Mary’s Chief Information Officer. As W&M’s CIO, he leads Information Technology, a critical partner in every aspect of learning and work at the university. Ed is responsible for bringing together diverse groups to identify and implement strategic, university-wide IT solutions for teaching, learning, research and operations.

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Lois Brooks joined UW–⁠Madison in August 2018 as vice provost for information technology and chief information officer. Prior to that she served as Oregon State University’s vice provost for information services and chief information officer. She is active nationally in the higher education community, having served in leadership and governance roles with the Northwest Academic Computing Consortium, Unizin, Educause Learning Initiative, and Internet2. She also served for many years at Stanford University, most recently as Director of Academic Computing.

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

As Vice President of Operations and Chief Operating Officer at Baldwin Wallace University, Flanik oversees the institution’s digital modernization initiatives. These initiatives have empowered the university to use data in real-time to drive institutional health and enrollment as well as improve student experience and success.

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Matthew Gunkel is leading the large-scale modernization of University of California, Riverside’s (UCR’s) IT infrastructure. He oversees IT operations for the entire institution, spanning academic and health functions. UCR was well behind the modernization efforts of other institutions but is currently overhauling its legacy IT by adopting new and emerging enterprise technologies to improve the student, faculty, and staff experience. Advancements improve data management, finances, student experience, workflow automation, technology consolidation, research tools, and more. These investments will result in cost savings, improved student outcomes, financial transparency, and greater support of faculty research.

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Jeff Hollingsworth is the vice president of information technology and chief information officer for the University of Maryland. The division of IT provides services to the entire campus including computer networking, telephones, video conferencing, audio-visual, and computing. Hollingsworth is responsible for the university’s overall technology environment, including critical IT services for research and teaching; administrative applications; information security and integrity; and broad technical support for faculty, staff and students. He also leads campus-wide strategies and policies around campus use of technology.

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Ian Hyatt was named Purdue University’s chief information officer and vice president of information technology in June 2021. He oversees IT services across the Purdue system, which includes cybersecurity, end user experience, IT enterprise reporting, IT infrastructure services, academic IT services and distributed campus services, as well as research services and support. 

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Justin McKenzie serves as CIO at Lincoln University and has spent the past 20+ years transforming IT organizations of various sizes. McKenzie leads IT strategy and operations at Lincoln University, a highly-selective liberal arts college ranked among the top in the country. Since joining Lincoln, McKenzie has completely transformed the university’s technology enterprise utilizing innovative IT service management principles, and cloud-enabled technologies.

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Michele Norin, the senior vice president and chief information officer at Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey. In this role, Norin is the institutional leader for technology in a highly complex environment. Her chief responsibility is to provide leadership in the strategic adoption and use of information technology in support of the university’s vision for excellence in research, teaching, outreach, and lifelong learning.

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

John Wilson is the chief information officer for Spelman College. Wilson is responsible for realizing a critical aspect of the college’s strategic plan through the modernization of the campus’ technology infrastructure. Wilson previously lead enterprise information systems for the Georgia Institute of Technology, and before that was a senior manager for information technology at Emory Technology.

University Technology Leader of the Year

Katherine Ankerson has served as Executive Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln since January 2022. Previously, Ankerson served as dean of the College of Architecture from 2016 to 2022. She was previously a professor and head of interior architecture and product design at Kansas State University and served as a professor and associate dean at Nebraska from 1996 to 2011.

University Technology Leader of the Year

Bill Balint is the chief information officer at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Balint has spent more than 30 years at the university, and also serves as a technical executive for the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education’s strategic information management system.

University Technology Leader of the Year

Jitt Benton is a university services IT operations manager at the University of Minnesota. Before joining the university, Benton worked as a systems implementation manager in local government in Anoka County, Minnesota. Before that, she worked in the private sector at SUPERVALU and Cargill.

University Technology Leader of the Year

Kyle Crain is the acting chief information security officer for Penn State University. In this role, Crain provides guidance and expertise across all units, colleges and campuses to protect the university from malicious attempts to access secure data and systems. Before being acting university CISO, Crain was the director of consulting and architecture and an information security architect.

University Technology Leader of the Year

Tim Evans is the executive IT Director for the Office of the CIO at the University of Iowa. In this role, Evans reports to the university’s CIO and leads the department responsible for much of the customer-facing ITS services. Evans also is responsible for providing guidance and leadership across the entire ITS organization.

University Technology Leader of the Year

Craig Jackson is the director of infrastructure operations networking at Illinois State University. Jackson serves on the leadership team for the campus IT unit at the university and is responsible for executing the vision for the group and providing IT infrastructure support. Jackson also is responsible for guiding automation of enterprise systems and applications.

University Technology Leader of the Year

Troy Travis is the assistant vice president for enterprise operations in the IT services department at Miami University of Ohio. Travis has been in the since 2014, and is responsible for stabilizing core operational services, including data center operations, enterprise-wide systems administration, network services and other core IT functions.

Industry Leader of the Year

Rob Lalumondier is the vice president of U.S. public sector at Sophos. He previously lead the federal business vertical for Sophos, and before that served as the executive director of McAfee’s federal civilian and intelligence business unit, and as the director of defense and intelligence at Intel Corporation. He also served as a captain in the U.S. Army during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Lalumondier holds a Bachelor of Science in Systems Engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a Master of Business Administration from Cornell University, where he is a Roy H. Park Leadership Fellow

Industry Leader of the Year

Kim Majerus leads the U.S. state & local government and education vertical at Amazon Web Services. Her sales organization includes edtech and govtech independent software vendors , solution and vertical strategy leaders who focus on health and human services, justice and public safety, transportation and the Internet of Things for state and local government customers.

Industry Leader of the Year

Lynn Martin is vice president of Google Public Sector, North America. Martin is responsible for driving growth and achieving customer success through the effective placement of Google Cloud solutions in Public Sector entities across North America. She first joined Google in December 2019 as the vice president of Google Cloud North America, Public Sector. Prior to Google Cloud, Lynn spent eight years at VMware, where most recently she served as vice president of Government, Education & Healthcare.

Industry Leader of the Year

Collin Suggs oversees Red Hat’s education team, which has nearly-doubled in size over the past year, driving growth and innovation for their Higher Education customers. In 2023, Collin helped launch Red Hat’s inaugural EDUNation event, attended by 50+ institutions including Forsyth Tech College, Temple University and UCLA Health. EDUNation explored solutions to key issues such as overcoming technical complexity and aging infrastructures, retraining workforce, and cloud migration.

Industry Leader of the Year

Susan Winslow is the chief executive officer and president of Macmillan Learning. Winslow has spent more than 30 years in the education industry, and works to empower educators and learners with the best tools, content and services to achieve their academic and professional goals. Before taking over as CEO of Macmillan Learning, Winslow spent more than a decade with Macmillan.

University IT Innovation of the Year

A major IT reorganization is underway at Purdue University, with three campuses — Purdue Northwest, Purdue Fort Wayne and Purdue Indianapolis — moving from independent to shared IT management under a new organization called Distributed Campus services.

University IT Innovation of the Year

At the University of Arizona, a tool called CatCloud aims to streamline the process of evaluating degree completion for students, making it possible for them to view classes and grades, see upcoming deadlines for assignments and quizzes, make an appointment with an adviser, or check their meal plan balance, all in one place.

University IT Innovation of the Year

The University of Hawaii will play a central role in the state of Hawaii’s broadband expansion plans. The University of Hawaii leads the Apakau ka la project, translated as “the spreading of the sun’s rays” — more than $400 million in federal grants and matching funds to boost state connectivity. University of Hawaii President David Lassner said the university has led broadband expansion in the state for decades and is “proud to be the only institution of higher education to lead these vital next steps of developing the broadband infrastructure so critical today to work, education, healthcare and economic vitality for our entire state.”

University IT Innovation of the Year

A new virtual reality lab at the University of Hawaii at Manoa is helping students, faculty and staff practice their public speaking skills. The university opened the VR lab using funds from a National Science Foundation grant. The lab was designed to help researchers to work on their science communication skills. Now, VR-based public speaking training is available to anyone who requests an appointment.