Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer Jay Dominick has announced plans to retire at the end of this calendar year. Dominick has led the Office of Information Technology (OIT) since 2012, overseeing the University’s information technology infrastructure, information security, and administrative and academic computing operations.
Dominick will conclude a 40-year career in information technology that has included serving as chief information officer at Princeton, Wake Forest University and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The University will soon begin a search for his successor.
“Every day at Princeton has been fulfilling,” Dominick said. “I will miss working with the incredibly smart faculty and staff who are dedicated to the noble teaching and research mission of this wonderful University. The one thing that I learned at Princeton that I will never forget is to pursue excellence — fully and without reservation. That is what makes Princeton a special place.”
President Christopher L. Eisgruber said he is grateful for Dominick’s leadership and expertise.
“During more than a decade at Princeton, Jay Dominick has done everything this University could want from a chief information officer: He has demonstrated technical agility, managerial savvy, superb citizenship, and a calm, collegial demeanor in even the most trying circumstances,” Eisgruber said. “I will be forever grateful to him, and to his organization, for the professionalism, skill and energy they demonstrated when we had to move our enterprise online during the COVID pandemic.”
Provost Jennifer Rexford, the Gordon Y.S. Wu Professor in Engineering, said she’s had the pleasure of working with Dominick on administrative, academic and research projects.
“I am so glad I had the opportunity to work closely with Jay over the years, in my roles as a researcher, as chair of the Department of Computer Science and now as provost,” Rexford said. “Jay is remarkable in his combination of broad perspective, deep knowledge and keen insight, coupled with his being a great communicator across a wide range of audiences.”
During Dominick’s tenure, OIT led significant projects to expand, improve and modernize the technology resources that are integral to teaching, learning, research and administrative operations.
“We implemented a major infrastructure overhaul that modernized our campus network in a way that supported the high-performance needs of our faculty, the flexibility and performance required by our students and that met the resiliency requirements of our campus operations,” he said.
New resources and programs launched by OIT in collaboration with departments across campus included:
- The research storage platform, TigerData, and the secure research computing system, Citadel.
- Traverse, the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory’s high-performance computing system.
- Canvas, the online learning management and course assignment tool used by faculty, undergraduates and graduate students in all academic departments.
- Princeton Prime, the budgeting and financial system used by all University offices and departments.
Dominick also led initiatives to better secure the University’s computers, network and data. He created the positions of chief information security officer and university data officer, and he oversaw OIT’s investment in new digital security resources that provided proper protections while also supporting scholars’ needs for openness and collaboration.
In addition, he championed the progress the University has made in becoming a more welcoming and inclusive community by assuring that digital resources were fully accessible to individuals with hearing and visual disabilities.
During the last decade, OIT also supported the enhancement of Princeton’s world-class research computing programs and tools. Dominick oversaw the creation and development of the Research Software Engineer program and supported the creation of resources dedicated to research data storage, curation and collaboration.
He also worked within OIT to develop a staff culture focused on delivering outstanding service and high performance.
Looking back on his 11 years at Princeton, Dominick said he is most proud of OIT’s tireless work and dedication during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The entire organization rose to the challenge of keeping Princeton running during a time when all of our campus operations, including virtual teaching and learning, were completely dependent on technology to function,” he said. “During this time, we demonstrated the value of Princeton’s investment in high-quality people who are deeply committed to sustaining the excellence of the University. “
Before coming to Princeton, Dominick was vice chancellor and CIO at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His career in higher education began at Wake Forest University, where he started as the network manager in 1992, becoming the university’s first CIO in 1996. His career in information technology began in 1984 while he was a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force at the Pentagon.
Dominick holds a Ph.D. in information and library science and a bachelor’s degree in mathematical sciences from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, a master’s in business administration from Wake Forest University and a master’s degree from Georgetown University. During his time at Princeton, he served on the Board of Trustees of Penn Medicine Princeton Health and the McCarter Theatre Center. He is a national trustee of the Foundation Fighting Blindness and a member of the corporation at the Perkins School for the Blind.
Following retirement, Dominick plans to relocate with his family to Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
