Jim co-founded the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC) and spearheaded UCLA’s leadership role in forming DOE’s Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CESMII), the 9th Manufacturing USA Institute and the 3rd DOE institute to be awarded. CESMII’s program and administrative home is with UCLA and through Jim’s Office of Information Technology. Jim led the Institute’s first business and technology roadmap and is currently involved with the Smart Manufacturing platform architecture, and CESMII’s cyber security strategy.
At UCLA, Jim is Vice Provost IT and CATO with accountability for university-wide planning and strategic investment in research and educational technologies, mobility applications, privacy/security and internal and external community partnerships. Jim heads the UCLA Office of Information Technology that oversees CESMII, UCLA’s Institute for Digital Research and Education (IDRE) and Innovate@UCLA, a coalition of CIOs and IT leadership from 40 companies in Southern California.  Jim is also on UCLA’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering where he has done research and consulted extensively on AI, machine learning, intelligent systems, monitoring/control, and data/modeling systems across diverse manufacturing industries including chemicals, refining, paper, packaging, metals and glass.
Jim has past work experience with Amoco Chemicals and was formerly the CIO at UCLA and The Ohio State University and Board Chair of the Corporation of Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC).  He is Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and is currently on the Board of Governors of the Manufacturing Leadership Council and the Leadership Council for Mforesight: Alliance for Manufacturing Foresight. Jim led the Mforesight report on Cybersecurity for Manufacturers.  He is the 2019 winner of the Manufacturing Leadership Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award (https://www.manufacturingleadershipcouncil.com/2019/10/04/creating-a-smarter-future/).
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About CESMII (Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute)
CESMII is the United States’ national institute on Smart Manufacturing, driving cultural and technological transformation and industrial cyber security leadership as national imperatives. By enabling frictionless movement of information – raw and contextualized data – between real-time Operations and the people and systems that create value in and across Manufacturing organizations, CESMII is ensuring the power of information and innovation is at the fingertips of everyone who touches manufacturing. Headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, CESMII brings over $140 million in committed public-private investment and more than 100 partners from leading manufacturers and universities across 30+ states. The Institute is accelerating Smart Manufacturing (SM) adoption through the integration of advanced sensors, data analytics, platforms and controls to radically improve productivity, precision, performance and energy consumption. CESMII’s program and administrative home is with the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). For more information, visit the CESMII website at: https://www.cesmii.org.