The Chief Information Officer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign reports to and works closely with the Provost and other campus leaders. The CIO’s duties include overall responsibility for the central academic IT organization (Technology Services at Illinois), IT governance, and participating in national and international organizations and consortia. The CIO chairs the campus IT Council, whose portfolio includes both infrastructure governance and implementation of IT governance decisions.
IT Governance
Technology plays a mission-critical role in helping the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign remain a preeminent public research university with a land-grant mission. The creative development and use of cutting edge technology resources helps transform all dimensions of our academic enterprise, including research, teaching and learning, and public outreach. Simply put, technology in each of these areas helps to support and transform the University of Illinois. Learn more about IT governance.
IT Policies
The Office of the CIO, helps formulate IT policies for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. You can find links to specific IT policies by visiting the Information Technology Policies page.
Office of the CIO Personnel
Chief Information Officer
Mairéad Martin
Mairéad joined the University of Illinois and Technology Services in July 2022 after serving three years as the CIO of EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education through the use of information technology. Prior to that, she held IT leadership positions at Tufts University in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Tennessee, serving more than 20 years in IT in Higher Education.
Seeing students, faculty, and staff benefit from the results of IT efforts is something Mairéad considers one of the most rewarding factors of working in Higher Education. The professional and personal development of staff is fundamental to Mairéad’s approach, and she considers herself a proponent of creating a leadership culture.
She is engaged at the national level in organizations such as Internet2, EDUCAUSE, the Common Solutions Group, and the Coalition for Networked Information and finds passion in this aspect of her work.
Assistant CIO, IT Planning and Outreach
Beth Scheid
Beth is the Assistant Chief Information Officer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She has been a part of academic computing on the campus for over 37 years. She serves as a strategic advisor to the Urbana Campus CIO, playing an essential role in strategy formulation and advancing delivery of innovative IT initiatives in support of teaching, research, and outreach for the Urbana campus. She oversaw the installation and support of the campus-wide network and facilitated the implementation of a campus-wide rates and funding model covering basic IT and computing services.
Currently, Beth oversees the groups involved with IT Governance, Communications and Marketing, and IT Policy and Planning. She works closely with the CIO in enabling her vision and strategy for campus IT.
Deputy CIO, Innovation and Technology Strategy
Tracy Smith
Tracy Smith is the Deputy CIO for Innovation & Technology Strategy at the University of Illinois. She has more than 20 years of experience in supporting, managing, and leading technology teams and programs, She partners across campus and beyond to advance areas including research support, cloud enablement, data as an enabler, broadband expansion, and equitable access to technology for marginalized populations
Deputy CIO, IT Operations
Drew MacGregor
Drew is the Interim Deputy CIO for IT Operations at the University of Illinois. He has been engaged in customer relationship development for 28 years, 23 in higher education Information Technology. Drew has worked at all levels of the University of Illinois, including the Department of Computer Science, Engineering IT, and CITES/Technology Services since 2012.
Drew‘s areas of expertise include multimedia, educational technologies, and classroom support. As Interim Deputy CIO his responsibilities include Enterprise Applications, Software Development, web hosting, campus network infrastructure, classrooms, internet communications tools, endpoint management, instructional labs and customer service teams.
Deputy CIO, Chief Information Security Officer
Kim Milford
In April 2023, Kim Milford accepted the role of Deputy CIO and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Illinois. In this role, Ms. Milford draws on her experience in research and education to lead strategy, direction, and innovation related to cybersecurity, identity protection, and privacy.
Prior to this role, Kim was the Executive Director and CISO at the REN-ISAC, working with research and education institutions and partners to provide member institutions with the information and tools to better defend their environments from threats. Her service in higher education began in 1998 having held leadership positions at Indiana University, the University of Rochester, and University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Kim provides cybersecurity expertise and presentations at national and regional conferences and seminars. She guest lectures and teaches cybersecurity courses and training, and has authored/co-authored many articles on the subject. Ms. Milford has a B.S. in Accounting from Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri and a J.D. from John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois.
Deputy CIO, Research IT Services
John Towns
John is the Deputy CIO for Research IT at Illinois. In the role of Deputy CIO, John works to enhance technologies and services used in research. Drawing on his resources and experiences at NCSA (the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, also at Illinois), Technology Services, and other campus units, John is well prepared to meet these challenges. He focuses on high-performance computing, high-speed networking, big data, and visualization.
John also collaborates with members of the campus research community to develop new initiatives, conduct ongoing needs assessments, and coordinate research IT activities across campus units.
In addition to being the Deputy CIO for Research IT, John is also PI and Project Director for the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) project and the Executive Director for the XSEDE Project Office at NCSA. He plays significant roles in the deployment and operation of high-end resources and services, and distributed computing projects providing leadership and direction in the development and provisioning of advanced computing resources and services.
John earned M.S. degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Illinois and a B.S. in Physics from the University of Missouri-Rolla.