Williams named to lead UCSF School of Pharmacy IT

Michael Williams, MA, is the first executive director of academic, administrative, and research technology for the UCSF School of Pharmacy, effective August 1, 2011.

“We created this position to harness and use information technology to make us more efficient and effective across the breadth of what we do in the School. We can’t afford to do otherwise,” explains Michael Nordberg, MPA/HSA, the School’s interim associate dean of finance and administration and Williams’ supervisor.

Initially, Williams will work closely with School academic and administrative leaders to apply targeted technology solutions to transform the way the School delivers and evaluates its Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum. The goal is to use technology to advance collaborative and interprofessional learning.

Since his appointment, Williams has also been co-directing the development of a new online presence for the School. His portfolio also includes the use of information technology to improve the School’s business and research systems.

Williams joins the School with UCSF experience as the former executive director of information technology for the UCSF-led Diabetes Center and Immune Tolerance Network as well as the chief information officer for the UCSF Epilepsy Phenome/Genome Project. In these roles he supported more than 30 global clinical trials, as well as 17 research laboratories, and managed a national team of information technology and biomedical informatics systems engineers and developers.

He has extensive experience as an information technology leader in the private sector, most recently with Cable and Wireless, Inc., a Global 1000 Telecommunications and Managed IT Services Outsourcing provider. He was responsible for the engineering, operations, and product development of systems and network solutions into Tier 1 data center facilities located on four continents, serving business critical “.com” infrastructure for customers such as UBS, Chase, Cisco Systems, Sony, and Microsoft.

In 2008, Williams was honored as one of Computerworld magazine's Premier 100 IT Leaders. He earned a master’s degree in instructional systems and technology from the University of Minnesota.