At the end of 2019, the Stevens community bid farewell to its long-standing Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer (CIO), Dr. David Dodd. Following an interim period of eight months, Stevens officially welcomes Tej Patel to fill these vacancies.
Patel joins the Stevens administration with over 15 years of experience working in higher education and in corporate information technology (IT). In his time serving as Chief Information Officer at the University of Pennsylvania, Patel was able to advance the university’s strategic plan. Other notable accomplishments under his leadership include ensuring the security of online learning technologies, designing and securing networks, building web applications, and more.
To find out more about Patel’s goals for Stevens, The Stute reached out to Patel over email. Below are his responses to various questions.
The Stute: Why did you join the Stevens community?
Patel: Stevens is a vibrant and an amazing private research university with a breathtaking location of the campus. I am a forward-looking information technology leader and laser focused on delivering high-quality digital technology services– “Technology at Our Core” caught my attention quickly during the interview process. I was impressed during my conversations with president Nariman, the colleagues, the board, faculty, and the IT team members. During the interview process, I felt a great connection and strongly believed I can add value while building trust and relationships throughout the Stevens community. It has been a month already, and I love a good challenge, and Stevens.
The Stute: Recently, Stevens was put into a rather unfortunate situation from a university-wide malware attack. Do you have any plans to increase university security measures to prevent this from happening? Please elaborate.
Patel: I believe Cybersecurity is a moving target and is difficult in a higher education space. Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility to promote a protected cyber infrastructure. “Cybersecurity Ventures predict malware/ransomware attacks will cost $6 trillion annually by 2021”. Since the attack we have taken several essential steps to evolve the security posture including network segmentation. That said, cybersecurity strategy is one of the highest of priorities for the Division of Information Technology. We are actively working to develop and evolve a cybersecurity program called Protect Stevens. The program will identify risks / gaps in information security and data privacy; as well as analyze and prioritize the security risk, develop, and track projects to implement controls for treating/ mitigating the identified threats and gaps. Last month, we established a partnership with a vendor to implement 24X7 SOC (Security Operations Center) as a service to increase monitoring, detection, and mitigation. We will be conducting regular vulnerability assessment and penetration testing to highlight weakness and exploits. The development and implementation of a security policy and controls will be among these efforts. We are enabling modern authentication for Office 365 and two-step authentication will be enabled for all faculty, staff, and students. This program will also improve user awareness training and continuous communication to rebuild trust throughout the Stevens community. Finally, we have launched a search to find a modern Chief Information Security Officer for Stevens who enjoys bridging gaps across technology, cybersecurity, privacy, and business processes while managing scale, building trust, and enabling business.
The Stute: Outside of security measures, is there anything else you hope to accomplish at Stevens in your roles of VP of IT and CIO?
Patel: To paraphrase a quote from Michelangelo – “I am still learning.” I strongly believe in empowering my team, faculty, staff, students and making sure they feel included – I want them to feel empowered to pursue their passions in the field of technology. All new opportunities often demand learning new organizational culture. I am spending a tremendous amount of time understanding Stevens’ processes and building meaningful relationships to increase collaboration and deliver value. I want to build a modern IT foundation and nurture “OneIT” Division of Information Technology team where we work together, have fun, and deliver exceptional services to support Stevens’ community. It is also important to understand that the digital transformation is not about a set of digital tools or technologies – it’s about people, processes, and improving experiences of Stevens’ faculty, students, researchers, staff and internal/external communities via “Technology at Our Core” – let’s build on this foundation together.
The Stute: Is there anything you’d like the Stevens community to know about you? Think of it like a fun fact!
Patel: That is easy – I proposed to my wife at the Hoboken Riverfront, we are married for 11 years, we have two boys (6 and 3 year) – they are the most important part of my life and I have learned so much from them. I [also] love cricket.
Be First to Comment