Robert K. Cunningham and Rob A. Rutenbar
As seen in the Pitt Research August 2021 Newsletter
To continue the mission of strengthening interdisciplinary collaboration and transformative research, Pitt Senior Vice Chancellor for Research Rob A. Rutenbar has appointed Robert K. Cunningham to the position of vice chancellor for research infrastructure, beginning September 1.
Reporting directly to Rutenbar, Cunningham will be responsible for the strategic leadership of Pitt’s research infrastructure, focusing on the effective operation, financial stability and future growth opportunities across the full spectrum of Pitt research platforms. This includes both physical and virtual laboratories, institution-scale equipment and facilities, and a renewed focus on all Pitt centers and institutes.
“Investing in systemic support for cross-disciplinary teams has long been a priority for the chancellor and me,” said Rutenbar. “Rob will spearhead new efforts to bring teams of faculty together to form new centers and institutes and seek ‘solution scale’ external funding for both new and existing centers. He will also serve as deputy director for our longstanding Pittsburgh Quantum Institute (PQI), and work to broaden PQI’s visibility and reach,” he added.
“I am excited to be joining the Pitt Research office and working with the outstanding faculty, staff and students. When I started learning about Pitt, I was deeply impressed by the many talented people and the exciting research being pursued here,” said Cunningham.
Cunningham comes to Pitt from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where he is associate director of cyber assurance in the CERT Division at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). He is also an adjunct professor of cybersecurity at the Institute for Software Research in the School of Computer Science, and an adjunct professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering.
Cunningham brings unique qualifications for this new role. Prior to his appointment at CMU, he directed the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) at the University of Maryland (UMD), where the technical foci included sensing, communication, storage and classical and quantum research. From 1988 to 2018, he held several leadership posts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory, where he led multiple groups, each with a different focus on computer security: test and evaluation, intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, hardware security and cryptography.
“Rob’s expertise in assembling and leading enterprise-scale teams of faculty and staff, demonstrated across his work with MIT Lincoln Lab, with LPS at Maryland, and with SEI at CMU, will significantly increase our ability to mentor new teams to attack new problems at Pitt,” said Rutenbar.
Cunningham’s undergraduate training was in engineering, and he received a Ph.D. in Cognitive and Neural Systems. Rutenbar believes Cunningham’s vast experience across STEM, cyber science, physical science and neuroscience is an excellent match to the breadth of the Pitt research community.
“I’m delighted that Cunningham’s expertise will help support new brain science efforts now being planned at the intersection of medicine, engineering and arts and sciences,” said Rutenbar.