Elias Eldayrie

As Chief Information Officer at the University at Buffalo (UB), Elias is responsible for the development and implementation of strategic, tactical, and operational plans for IT. His leadership has been of pivotal importance in UB’s implementation of a strategic plan to transform IT at UB, based on a framework of containing costs for utility services in order to create capacity to support innovation. Elias is a board member of the New York State Education and Research Network (NYSERNet), serves on The Chronicle of Higher Education Leadership Board for CIOs, serves on the Executive Council of SUNY CIOs, and is an executive member of the Buffalo/Niagara Regional Dark Fiber Optic Network Project.

Elias has served as the Assistant Senior Vice President, the Assistant Vice Provost for Enrollment Management, the Director of the Office of Financial Aid, and the Director of the Office of Student Accounts. During his professional career at UB, Elias has won the State University of New York Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Professional Service, a Sallie MAE Education Institute Award, a Student Access Excellence Award, and a UB Service Excellence Award.

Elias is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the School of Management. In 2009, he was honored with the University at Buffalo Milton Plesur Excellence in Teaching Award. He has taught internationally, in Belarus and Hungary.

Current major initiatives include the following:

• IT Strategic Tranformation Initiative As the team leader of the UB2020 IT Strategic Transformation Initiative, Elias has transformed IT at UB, improving efficiency and services via standardization, consolidation, and business process re-engineering. He is currently leading the IT staff reorganization, creating an integrated IT organization at UB.
• Enterprise Administrative Systems: Elias also is a leader in the effort to review administrative systems, develop a roadmap for the replacement of legacy systems and develop an enterprise administrative systems architecture, defining standards and protocols for data exchange, communications, software, and interconnection with business partner systems. He is a leader of the Student Services ERP Implementation team.
• Transformation of Campus Living, Learning Spaces: Elias has been a leading proponent of the development of technology-enabled, informal learning spaces for our students who arrive on campus with multiple mobile devices and high technological expectations of living and learning in a connected and collaborative environment. He serves on the campus physical planning committee to develop these spaces. In Fall 2009, students returned to several transformed informal collaborative learning spaces in Knox, NSC, and Diefendorf, as well as many transformed formal learning spaces.
• Enterprise Research Computing Services: Elias recently established an enterprise research computing services group to provide a portfolio of IT services for researchers. The CIO is an active partner with the Center for Computational Research.

• Board Member, The Chronicle of Higher Education Leadership Board for CIOs (2009)
• Board Member, New York State Education and Research Network (2006-Present)
• Board Member, Dell Platinum Advisory Board (2007)
• Member, Blackboard Advisory Board (2005-2007)
• Educause
• Nacubo
• IBM Best Practices Group
• SUNY Technology Group

• Top 10 Countdown/CMS, Campus Technology, November, 2005
• Course Management Systems - Past, Present, and Future, EDUTECH 2006