"Whether it's at NASA or a university system level job, a CIO wants to be able to expand the scope of our technology and systems to impact the largest number of people." In this month's Top of Mind Podcast, host Elizabeth Farrell is joined by the Vice President of Information Technology Services and Chief Information Officer at Washington State University, Dr. Sasi Pillay, to discuss how he views the role of a CIO. Starting at NASA, Dr. Pillay moved to higher education because working with young students was exciting and it allowed him to continue to work in a learning environment. In regards to IT, there are more similarities than differences between higher education and science, according to Dr. Pillay. The most critical one is keeping the constituents' needs at the forefront. Listen in as Dr. Pillay explains his strategy of enhancing the student experience via administrative system deployments and degree planning programming that's accessible to both current students and alum.
"Whether it's at NASA or a university system level job, a CIO wants to be able to expand the scope of our technology and systems to impact the largest number of people." In this month's Top of Mind Podcast, host Elizabeth Farrell is joined by the Vice President of Information Technology Services and Chief Information Officer at Washington State University, Dr. Sasi Pillay, to discuss how he views the role of a CIO. Starting at NASA, Dr. Pillay moved to higher education because working with young students was exciting and it allowed him to continue to work in a learning environment. In regards to IT, there are more similarities than differences between higher education and science, according to Dr. Pillay. The most critical one is keeping the constituents' needs at the forefront. Listen in as Dr. Pillay explains his strategy of enhancing the student experience via administrative system deployments and degree planning programming that's accessible to both current students and alum.
Hello, and welcome to the November episode of Tambellini Group's Top of Mind Podcast. I'm your host, Liz Farrell. In this episode, we're talking about CIO leadership within mission-driven organizations with Dr. Sasi Pillay the CIO at Washington State University. This is Dr. Pillay second CIO's role in academe, as he also served for two years as CIO and AVP for the University of Wisconsin System. Prior to that, he served in a long tenure at NASA and various leadership roles, including CTO for NASA in Washington, DC and CIO of the Glenn Research Center in Ohio. Dr. Pillay was recently inducted into IDC's CIO Hall of Fame. And throughout his career, he has earned numerous distinctions for his leadership and innovations, including NASA's Exceptional Service Medals and Outstanding Leadership Medals, and the Presidential Rank Award. He earned his BS in mechanical engineering from Penn State, a master's in computer engineering from Case Western Reserve, a master's in management of technology from MIT, and his PhD in computer engineering from Case Western Reserve. It's quite a roster of accomplishments. Welcome, Dr. Pillay.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you today to share some of my insights and my experiences of how I got to where I am.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's certainly an interesting story and we really appreciate you taking the time to join us. To start us off, you have a very interesting background given that you spent so much time working at NASA. Could you tell us about your career trajectory that led you from space agency to academe?
Speaker 2:So, soon after my PhD, in fact, while I was finishing up my PhD thesis, I started working as an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve. Those days, it was about pattern recognition. Today, we would call that data science. It was about predicting the outcome of newborns, based on perinatal care and also monitoring EEG signals during the birth of the infant. So using all those types of predictive factors, we could come reasonably close to essentially saying how healthy the baby is going to be after birth. So once we did that, and then the opportunity to work at NASA came along, I thought I'll be there for a short time, but ended up staying, as you mentioned, quite a long time at NASA, because the opportunity at NASA was very interesting and enticing. You could practically work on a variety of things. You never got bored. It's not one thing that you do every day in and day out. So those things, I think it will continue to help me to develop, as a solver and also learn about how to lead and create high-performing teams.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. And certainly during that time, as we mentioned, you were recognized for your leadership and, and accomplishments there. So what attracted you to making the switch to working in universities?
Speaker 2:And as I mentioned, I started out as an assistant professor. I thought after spending quite a long time at NASA, I thought, okay, I'm looking for even more challenging assignments. And of course the university provides that it's also a learning environment, just like NASA is. And we support very many bright people at NASA and in the universities. And I think the opportunity to work with young students was also a motivating factor.
Speaker 1:You had talked to about that after being so established in one area, it can be a challenge to make the switch.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's an interesting point that you raised. When we're talking about information technology, the technology component, the content I would say is very, very similar with NASA. We deal with email system, collaborative tools, video conferencing, high-performance computing, cybersecurity. And in all aspects, every one of those things are critical to an university as well. Now the context might be a little different, but then again, I see a lot of similarities. We are working with people who are way smarter than I am, and here's an opportunity to learn from them, understand some of the research interests, some of the things that are unique and unusual things similarly at NASA. So I didn't see, even when I describe it from content and context, I find even more similarities. It's not all that different than even the, I would say the governance structure is also quite similar. It's a very collaborative decision-making methodology and process that we have used at NASA. And that's the same as well at academic institutions. So it was really not much of a switch for me. It's actually convincing the leaders that I'm capable of managing and doing similar kinds of work and create and perform and generate outcomes that are significant—that we were able to do at NASA—that we could do similarly at the institution. And the last five and a half years at Washington State University, my team and I have delivered on very many of what I would call innovative and unusual projects.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can tell, and I hope to get to those in a few minutes here. I think one of the things that you had mentioned to me that I found interesting was you said whether it's at NASA job or a university system level job, a CIO wants to be able to expand the scope of our technology and systems to impact the largest number of people. Um, and you talked about, you wanted to be able to reduce friction when they're interacting with the services that they provide. Um, and that makes a lot of sense in terms of the, the similarities and the overall charge of the role. But, um, when we had talked a little bit more about some specific product projects, it was very enlightening to me to hear the parallels between some of the big initiatives that you had done at NASA. And then some of the projects and initiatives you've led at universities. Could you share with our readers, some of those and the similarities between the two?
Speaker 2:Sure. So one of the things that, um, I was able to do with my team at NASA was to create a lab that essentially looked at doing innovative type of work in high-performance computing, whether it's a stories, technology network or computational sciences. Uh, and soon after I came to Washington State University, one of the projects that we deployed was to create the first ever paddle processing computing environment at Washington State University, and the last five years, the growth of that has surpassed anybody's and everybody's imagination. Uh, so in, in, I think in, in a short five years now, we, the researchers at the university have submitted close to over a hundred million dollars worth of proposals based on that capability that did not exist, you know, five, five and a half years earlier. So that's a remarkable thing. Same thing in terms of we just deployed about six months ago our ability to do research using regulator data. We have stood up now in a matter of six months, well, over a hundred instances. So that began another unique capability that we were able to provide to our faculty and researchers. So these are the kinds of things, how we can use technology to really be game-changing rather than continue to stay what I would call and sort of incremental thinking. We're able to kind of break out of the box and then do innovative things which really benefits the organization, whether it happens to be at NASA, or it happens to be at university.
Speaker 1:You would also talked about ERP systems. I know that that's something that's top of mind for a lot of institutions. Can you share a little bit more about those projects and now recently?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've now. So when I was there, we were part of a larger group that implemented the SAP-based environment for government agencies. Uh, and here, back here at Washington State University, we just deployed a Workday implementation for HR, payroll, and finance this past January in the middle of the pandemic. So the kind of requirements that we have are very, very similar. Everybody wants to be paid, whether you're working for NASA or you're working for the university and HR and payroll system and the finances and the budgeting components that are necessary to run an efficient organization is identical, whether you're working at NASA or a university. So when you look at all these things, it's very, very similar. You know, there's more similarities than differences.
Speaker 1:It's very, very clear point. I think you had also mentioned with, with cyber security programs as well, that that's been a big priority at both. And we've certainly seen a lot of, uh, growing concern as there already was strong concern over cybersecurity and data security at institutions.
Speaker 2:So that's the other thing we did in the last several years. We, we completely revamped our cybersecurity team and our ability to deal with issues. We actually created Integrated Security and Network Operations Center that has been functioning the last four years or so now. And we assembled a very good team in terms of personnel and provide a number of the right tools and the proper budget to be able to effectively do the work of cybersecurity, because the requirements for that is only continuing to increase in, as you pointed out, um, the, the bad actors, their ability and capability is, are also increasing. So to me, cybersecurity is it's, it's not a destination, it's a journey we have to continuously get better. As some of the bad actors are getting better as well. So it's important to be on a trajectory that we continue to invest in people, tools, and the technology necessary here.
Speaker 1:And I can understand how that can be so challenging when you're dealing, especially with a university environment, or as you said at NASA, when you're dealing with the research environment, in both of those contexts, we see that the ability to openly share information helps with collaboration, um, helps with innovation, especially across disciplines, but we often see, especially with cyber that you want to eliminate as much as possible, the, the vulnerabilities there. So I can imagine with that challenge of priorities within the institutions that you do really have to spend a lot of time, just staying on top of what's going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So in both institutions, in creation of the information creation of knowledge, the dissemination of that knowledge, and the management of the knowledge, and all those—the three components—are regarding discovery that is important, both for NASA and as well as universities. So to be able to do that effectively in a secure manner is important. So cybersecurity, no matter what your organization's ultimate objective is, is critical for survival.
Speaker 1:Definitely. Well, we've talked about, there are these parallels that you've seen in the projects you worked on, whether it's ERP system deployment, high performance computing in both environments, cybersecurity programs, you had talked to me too about, um, some of the impacts that you've already realized from doing those things in terms of efficiencies and serving the students. So aside from the parallels between the types of projects that you've done, I was fascinated when we talked a little bit about cultural differences between working in higher ed institutions and a federal agency like NASA. You know, I had been sort of pressing you to say, like, what are the differences there? And you said, initially one might assume that there would be vast differences between the two, but you made a distinction. I hadn't expected.
Speaker 2:I can remember what that distinction wants now. So, in both areas, it's the distributed governance that really drives both the creative spirits and the innovation of the groups. So I, again, I find that a striking similarity, um, between these cases now, and when it comes to these types of projects at the end of the day, our success as a CIO or a CIO's organization, the IT organization, success of our organization in that—in our department—let me sa yis strictly driven by the ability to collaborate. So if, if, if I, uh, as part of my responsibility and my team are not actively engaged in collaborating and understanding the mission of the organization, the larger organization, it would be very difficult to drive change and have people trust in you, and then be able to deliver on some of these significant initiatives. So to me, it's all about working collaboratively with people from all sides. That, I think, critical. And that's true for again any job, but particularly true in technology, because at the end of the day, everybody needs technology these days to solve and address the problems they are facing. And we, on the it side, we need to be listening with empathy to make sure we understand what those requirements are, then be able to translate them into these types of initiatives or projects that we can deliver on a case in point here. But one of the things we just recently deployed at the university, what was the degree planner? We recognize, do we want to make sure every student that's coming to WSU is a successful and the rest of the way, one of the best ways to make sure that that happens is to have a plan for each student as they enter as a freshmen through WSU or the transfer as a student drives a transfer student. So creating a degree plan to make sure they are successful so we can, they can track themselves and the advisors, the faculty, and by the progress the student is making is super critical to keep them on track because without a plan it's sort of a random walk and the students spend unnecessarily far too much time at the university, uh, incurring more debt and so on and so forth, um, which is not necessary. So we're hoping as we roll this out, uh, to the entire institution, that every student will have a credible plan, which maps against a degree plan, uh, a degree of their choice or interest. So that, and our second version of that is going to version of the same, um, initiative is going to provide opportunity for the, the system, our, our say our algorithms will be able to make some strong recommendations as to which degree programs a certain in a similar situation, in the past, was successful. And then we'll be able to take that data and influence the thinking of the current student as to how to motivate them, how to guide them. So they have a very successful experience at WSU.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the degree planner program is so fascinating to me when we had talked about it before you had said, you, you know, a lot of that information had been there in some way, shape or form for students, but, um, you wanted to create something more structured and formalized to help them. You had talked about some key components of the plan in putting together the degree planner. And you talked about the importance of self-service.
Speaker 2:So as you know, we have, we have, uh, we have an advising group and so on, but each advice has to deal with close to 300 students. So the ability for the advisors to be timely and provide significant direction in terms of advising the student in teams, in terms of this career choices, it becomes more and more difficult. So we are hoping that by connecting the technologies together and then mining the data based off our alums, we should be able to connect our students with successful alums in those chosen fields who can also be another advisor to the students progress at the Institute of the university. So tying those kinds of pieces together where the data exists in siloed environments is critical. And so it's, so the student becomes successful, obviously not only based on the academic performance, um, but the health and wellness, uh, the financial ability for them to pay the bills. And, and, and the bottom line is also what I would call the sense of belonging, uh, is critical for students that it's, you know, we're all human beings and we have, um, needs of social interaction and the ability to contribute in a team environment, et cetera. Uh, so all those things require nurturing us as part of that certain experience. When they come to WSU, the whole idea then is to connect the right people together at the right time. So the student can make the most and the best use of it. So to me, looking at the student holistically, I'm bringing in the data from this, all these various other systems, which have those fundamental data and putting it together. So we have a single pane of view of the student is absolutely critical.
Speaker 1:It's something, when I hear you say all those things, it sounds wonderful. And it's, what's so many institutions they're trying to do, but I think when they get down to the nuts and bolts of trying to take what exists to help students and those one-on-one face-to-face interactions with an advisor and aggregate and be able to leverage all this data, it can become onerous. And it can, it's obviously a big challenge because you're getting things from a lot of different silos across an organization. So, um, to give our listeners a sense of how you got this off the ground, can you talk a little bit about the pilot program and the school it started with and what you were able to do there? Yeah.
Speaker 2:So our, our business school, um, Carson college of business WSU is quite innovative. So they're always looking for ideas. So it was very easy to sit down with the Dean and really communicate some of the thinking that we have and kind of matched where they wanted to go, because every institution wants their students to be as successful as possible, you know, create, making sure they realize the full potential of that student. And the way to do that is using some of the data that we already have, and we know about, and then bringing that data, surfacing that data to influence current thinking. And the way we we work with our students is very important. And so it was, uh, we rolled out a pilot in the Carson College of Business, I think with 700 students and the students like interacting with it because these days, everybody wants more. Self-service, they're not interested in waiting in a line or are sending an email waiting for a response sometime later and so on and so forth. They have a need like every customer, consumer, their needs, their needs, their needs need to be satisfied immediately, you know, maybe sooner than they thought about it. And that's when they need to have that realization that is possible. So providing this type of environment, we did the cell service, it's collaborative in the sense that, uh, both the advisor and the student can see what each other is doing with the plan. So we still maintain that collaboration between the advisor advising group and the students, but the students also will be far better prepared when they are, do have that face-to-face or in-person or zoom meeting with the advisor. They're far better prepared because they've already started looking at some of the options. So the, the interaction between the advisor and the student is far more effective, uh, because it certainly is much, much better prepare for that meeting because they have, we have given that student a lot of opportunities to look at, uh, several what if type of scenarios?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Those simulations to me are just something I wish that I had had as a student, because you, you don't know like, well, if I want to switch majors, or if I study this, how much longer is it going to take? And I loved your description about how, um, you know, if a computer engineering major wants to switch to physics, well, they may not have an advisor who has all that information in their head of what courses they would need for that major, how that would affect their degree planning or their job prospects and the way you're all building. This sounds like it, it provides those, um, features to give them a sense of, if I stick with this, I have these options. If I stick with that, I have these other options. And also most importantly to a lot of students is the cost of that. How many additional courses am I going to have to take? Um, so where's the project at this year. So my understanding is last year you had 700 students in the pilot program.
Speaker 2:This fall, we rolled it out to the entire university. So, every student that is a freshmen or a transfer student should be in the process of creating these plans now, but starting with the fall semester. So we are well on our way of making to making that a reality for every student
Speaker 1:That's great. It seems like you're a lot farther along in realizing the vision of making technology work for students in that aspect of degree planning and academic progress. Um, and it seems like you've built a lot of that from the ground up.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we built down our student information system. So like I said, the data exists in various different pockets and you're able to bring that together. And their whole idea is this is part one element, one foundation of our student-centric ecosystem, where we want to connect and build a 80-year relationship with the person—all the way from middle school to a prospect, to certainly becoming a student at WSU, then their experience as a student at WSU. And then of course, be a successful alum and be able to kind of put all that together, and then be able to interact with that individual, you know, for that many years. So we are one of the few industries, uh, where we are fortunate or we have that luxury, being able to maintain that long relationship with a constituent or a customer.
Speaker 1:One of the things, when you're talking about alums, a, an interesting thing you had mentioned as a future goal for all this is linking up that development data for advancement offices and how alums are often, you know, identified by their, those apps and platforms used by advancement based on their ability to donate to the institution. But you had talked a little bit about another way that they contribute, which is through, uh, being potential mentors or helping other students understand, um, what a degree could mean for them in terms of real world jobs. Could you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So our idea is a certain becomes also successful if they can see role models that they can interact with and then better appreciate, okay, I'm getting a degree in mechanical engineering. What does the mechanical engineer engineer do in real life? And instead of an advisor, making some extrapolated statements based on their experience, we can actually try to put that student in touch with a practicing mechanical engineer who can walk that student through various scenarios of how their daily work translates to what they learned at the institution, how it has been applied and so on. So it makes it more real for them. And it's no longer abstract. Now, that's the other opportunity that comes along with it. Uh, the alums can also provide opportunities for summer employment internships, and then even possibly permanent employment. Uh, so the, so we want to make sure our alarms are, uh, play a very active role in the success of our current students. And that's another way to build brand brand recognition and brand unity is to kind of keep our students, even our graduated students very close and kind of put them on a mission that helps, I would say society in general at the end of the day. That's what education should allow us to do is to have more responsible citizens that serve the community.
Speaker 1:Yes. And I assume there's also a lot more alums who are, have the means to provide advice on career things and be major donors. Yeah. I think the majority actually fall into that category. So it's a great idea just in terms of leveraging the network there and, um, giving them both a rewarding experience to contributing out of that, even finding more employees. Um, so one of the things that I really enjoyed you saying was you gain a lot of satisfaction when you're in panels or meetings with other people, whether it's at your own institution with other leaders or beyond their, where they don't think you're a CIO, because they say the way you talk about these things, or, you know, you're talking about the mission, you sound like a VP of student success or a VP of research. So, um, one of the reasons that you identified that they seem to think this is the case is because the mission is so central to everything that you're doing in technology. And you mentioned to me that with any project or initiative, you undertake that there are three tenants that guide you. Um, you'd said, what are we doing to advance the mission? What are we doing to reduce the risks of the university and what are we doing to be price competitive? So, um, can you talk a little bit about the, the standards underneath each of those three legs of the stool?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when it comes to mission at the university, there are several, obviously we talked quite a bit at length regarding the educational component. There's a huge research component. We talked a little bit about that in terms of providing, uh, researchers and faculty members, the opportunity to conduct the research without having to become experts in cybersecurity or experts in, you know, paddle processing and things like that. And it's about their discipline expertise that we are trying to leverage, um, as much as possible. And then kind of keeping the technology components and the, the housekeeping that is required kind of behind the scenes, uh, through providing these enabling environments, uh, then of course reducing the risk of the institution's paramount. We want to make sure that we are not, we try our best to make sure our data is not compromised. Uh, is data is, is the real, uh, asset, uh, after human resources, the data that we create, we talked about earlier. It's is a critical asset that needs to be properly curated, managed, and secured, and made available to those who need it, uh, in, in a way that is not altered and so on and so forth. So maintenance of that is a critical role for an it organization, but the way we provide that is essentially talking to people about reducing the risks to the institution. Then of course, cost-effectiveness is almost important because, uh, we want to do more things with our limited funding. The only way that you can do that is to be constantly be innovating. And so these days with more and more advanced technologies are maybe even moving to the cloud for that matter. As simple as that, uh, provides opportunities for us to be more innovative in the missions, the university is involved in whether it's outreach, teaching research and so on and so forth. So to me, we are in a good place in the sense that the current it organizations have different choices and how we can deploy the technology. And instead of focusing in my mind about systems and servers and things like that, uh, we should be focusing more on solutions and services that benefit the university at large, which includes students, faculty, staff, and the community at large.
Speaker 1:Yeah, without a doubt. Well, these are obviously issues that you've given a lot of thoughtful consideration to in terms of how data and technology can empower and improve the institution's mission to serve its community and ensure students success. And I'm sure they'll resonate with many of our listeners. So thank you so much for sharing your insights with us and being our Timberland group podcast guest today. Dr. Pillay.
Speaker 2:Okay. Thank you, Elizabeth. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about some of these interesting topics. Uh, I mean, to me, it is, uh, it's a, it's a pleasure to communicate how we're doing, and we are using some of these ideas, uh, to make a difference for our students
Speaker 1:And that at the end of the day is what matters most. So that concludes this month's episode of Tambellini's Top of Mind Podcast. Don't forget to check out our other episodes, blogs and resources at thetambellinigroup.com.