Australian IT Academic Named President of Indiana University. (March 5, 2007)

Michael McRobbie was a professor in the Institute of Advanced Study at the Australian National University and chief executive officer of the Cooperative Research Center for Advanced Computational Systems until 1997. He earned a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Queensland and his PhD at ANU.

Professor McRobbie, 56, joined Indiana University in January 1997 as vice president for information technology and chief information officer. In May 2003, he took on the addition role of  vice president for research, and in January 2006 he was appointed interim provost and vice president for academic affairs. He will take up his duties as the university's president with its eight campuses and 97,000 students on July 1, 2007.

He'll have his work cut for him to significantly raise the overall standing of the university. Currently the main campus at Bloomington is ranked 97 in Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Institute of Higher Education listing of research universities while the 22,000 student combined Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis campus is placed in the 301-400 list.

By comparison 7 of the University of California's 10 campuses rank in the top 50.

Australia's ANU and University of Melbourne rank 54 and 78 respectively.