UCLA Vice Provost Emeritus
CESMII Program Oversight & Principal Investigator
After 24 years in executive IT leadership at UCLA, Jim has accepted an appointment as Special Advisor on Smart Manufacturing and Data Science in the UCLA Office of Research and Creative Activities. Jim remains Principal Investigator with oversight of the Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CESMII), the national Manufacturing USA Public Private Partnership, sponsored by the Department of Energy and based at UCLA. As a co-founder of the U.S. Smart Manufacturing Initiative, Jim has expanded activities that continue to define, build, and shape industry adoption for manufacturing and environmental sustainability, while also working with UCLA on its Data Science initiatives. Jim draws upon 40 years of research and administrative experiences in developing AI/ML in manufacturing – specializing in diagnostics and control, building high performance data and computing research capabilities, implementing institutional administrative and research systems, and scaling network connectivity and cyberinfrastructure nationally.