Building the Bridge While Crossing It
Higher education and academic medicine are each navigating their own version of disruption with tightening budgets, rising vendor costs, workforce pressure, and the demand to modernize faster than ever. At the University of Utah, we're navigating both at once.
As CTO across University of Utah and University of Utah Health, I sit at the IT infrastructure intersection of two cultures, two strategies, and two sets of priorities, and increasingly, one shared future. In this keynote, I'll share what that vantage point looks like: where academic and health IT genuinely differ, where the pressures are identical no matter which side of campus you're on, and why the changes underway with infrastructure modernization, shared services, and yes, a lot of AI, are about building a strong IT foundation, giving both sides more strength to face what's ahead.
Most of all, this talk is about you: what it takes to be an adaptable, resilient IT professional in a moment of real change, and why gathering here, trading knowledge across the lines that at times divide us, is exactly the kind of rendezvous this work requires.