Bruce Childers, who has been serving as interim dean of the School of Computing and Information since 2020, has been selected as the permanent dean, following a national search.

Childers stepped in after Paul Cohen, founding dean of the School of Computing and Information, decided to step down in July 2020. Childers has also served as special assistant to the provost for data science to examine opportunities and develop goals and actions regarding data science. He has been at Pitt since 2000.

Prior to those assignments, Childers served as senior associate dean and associate dean for strategic initiatives at SCI. He also has served as department chair of information culture and data stewardship.

He has won recognition for his administrative and teaching leadership, including from the ACC Academic Leaders Network and numerous Department of Computer Science awards. 

His research work includes the Open Center for Curation of Computer Architecture Modeling, recently funded by the Department of Defense.
 
Childers holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Virginia and a B.S. in computer science from the College of William and Mary.

The search committee was led by Steve Wisniewski, vice provost for budget and analytics. Childers officially assumes the deanship on May 1.