Announcing Lafayette’s new Chief Information Officer

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,

We are excited to share with you that David Lifka will be joining Lafayette as our new Chief Information Officer (CIO). David brings to the role over 35 years of research and CIO experience in higher education, government research, research computing, and hospital settings. He will officially join the College on Aug. 1, 2025.

David joins us following a national search that attracted outstanding candidates from across the country. Throughout the search process, he stood out from this strong pool with extensive experience as a thoughtful partner who will work collaboratively across the College to advance our many academic and administrative initiatives.

After more than 27 years of expansive leadership experience at Cornell University, David worked for the past year as a Microsoft industry solutions consultant through Kyndrl, an IT consulting firm. In this role, he developed digital modernization and transformation strategies for higher education customers.

David previously served as Cornell’s Vice President and Chief Information Officer from 2015-23, leading the institution’s central IT unit. His prior roles at Cornell included leadership as Associate Chief Information Officer and Director of Research Computing for the Weill Cornell Medical College. His service at Cornell started in Cornell’s Theory Center, first as Senior Systems Programmer, then as Associate Director of Computer Systems, and finally as Center Director.

David’s extensive experience in information technology is complemented by his time spent in Cornell’s Computing and Information Science Department. He was an Adjunct Associate Professor from 2005-12 while serving as Director of High Performance and Innovative Computing from 2005-07.

From 2007-23, David simultaneously served as Director of Cornell’s Center for Advanced Computing, a core facility he helped establish to provide advanced computational and data analysis support.

Prior to Cornell, David served over seven years at the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, first as an Associate Computer Scientist and then as Senior Technical Support Analyst.

Active in service to the profession, David has served in leadership positions with the National Science Foundation, the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation, and the New York Center for Computational Science. His professional affiliations also include EDUCAUSE, Association for Computing Machinery, HPC Advisory Council, and IEEE Computer Society.

Each of David’s academic degrees are in computer science. He earned his B.S. from Illinois Benedictine College, his M.S. from North Central College, and his Ph. D. from Illinois Institute of Technology. Throughout his career, he has written for a variety of publications, served as a speaker at regional and national IT conferences, and received numerous IT industry and federal awards.

We extend our sincere gratitude to the members of our search committee who joined us on this comprehensive search: Dan Brown, Eric Ho, Kara Howe, Amy Klotz, Geoff Labe, Tim Laquintano, Charlotte Nunes, Paulette Poloni, Mark Sapara, and Lindsay Soh.

We are excited to welcome David and his wife, Christine, to our Lafayette community.

Yours,

Audra Kahr, Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration
Laura McGrane, Provost