John McGowan Named Vice Provost and Chief Information Officer at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Dr. John P. McGowan has been named vice provost and chief information officer at The University of Alabama, effective July 14.

McGowan has more than 20 years’ experience in information technology and currently serves as vice provost for information technology and chief information officer at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

“John McGowan has a wealth of experience in managing information technology in a university environment,” said Dr. Judy Bonner, UA executive vice president and provost, in announcing the appointment. “His expertise will be extremely valuable to The University of Alabama, and we are looking forward to working with him.”

McGowan said he looks forward to leading the technology support efforts at UA. “Technology can be an incredible enabler of the business, academic and research components of the University,” he said.

Prior to joining UT-San Antonio in 2006, McGowan served as vice president and chief information officer at Florida International University for five years. At FIU he provided leadership for the Division of Information Technology, University Libraries and the College of Continuing and Professional Studies and oversaw the Center for Internet Augmented Research and Assessment which provides advanced networking capabilities to the Caribbean and South America. Under his leadership, the technology organization of FIU was selected as a Laureate of the Computerworld Honors Program in 2004 for their voice over Internet protocol and advanced networking implementation.

McGowan was selected as one of the world’s Top 10 Leaders in IT by Cisco Corp. in 2003. He served on Cisco’s Enterprise Technical Advisory Board from 2003-2005 and has also been a member of PeopleSoft Corp.’s Technical Advisory Board. He was a member of the project advisory committee of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study Human Genome Project.

McGowan has also served as chief technology officer for the University of Southern Mississippi, as a consultant to universities and colleges, and as director of project planning for SCT, a major software company in higher education.

In addition, McGowan spent 11 years as a research biochemist in the fields of cancer research and molecular biology. He earned his doctorate in pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of the Pacific.