Office of the President, Michael A. McRobbie

Short Biography

Short Biography: President Michael A. McRobbie

Michael A. McRobbie became the 18th president of Indiana University on July 1, 2007. IU is one of the largest university systems in the U.S. with eight campuses, a total budget of around $3 billion, and more than 7,000 faculty, 11,000 staff, and 110,000 students.

McRobbie joined IU in 1997 as vice president for information technology and chief information officer, and was appointed vice president for research in 2003. He was named interim provost and vice president for academic affairs for IU’s Bloomington campus in 2006, and became president the following year.

As president, McRobbie has refocused IU around six Principles of Excellence — an excellent education, world-class research and scholarship, an outstanding faculty, enhanced international engagement, excellence in health sciences, and in engagement. Supporting these core principles is an essential framework of excellence in the four areas of advancement, infrastructure and facilities, information technology, and administration.

Under McRobbie’s leadership, IU has seen a major expansion in the size and quality of IU’s student body, a record level of expenditure, a billion dollar expansion of IU’s facilities, and the completion of the $1.1 billion “Matching the Promise” endowment campaign at IU Bloomington and the $1.25 billion “IMPACT” campaign at its Indianapolis campus, which recently surpassed the $1 billion mark and is now very close to its goal. These are the first two phases of a $5 billion campaign to be completed in IU’s bicentenary year of 2020.

In addition to his duties as president, McRobbie serves on several outside committees and organizations, and is presently the chair of Internet2 and immediate past chair of University Research Associates, which is responsible for Fermi Lab. He is also a member and former chair of the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors, and a member of the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board.

McRobbie is vice chairman of the board of the Indiana University Health system — one of the largest and most highly regarded hospital systems in the U.S. — and the OneAmerica insurance company, based in Indianapolis.

McRobbie also holds faculty appointments in computer science, philosophy, cognitive science, informatics, library and information science, and computer technology, and has been an active researcher in information technology and logic over his career. He has been the principal investigator on several major grants, has published a number of books, many articles, and has served on numerous editorial boards and conference committees.

A native of Australia, McRobbie received a Ph.D. from the Australian National University in 1979, and has honorary doctorates from the University of Queensland (2007), Sung Kyun Kwan University in Korea (2008), the Australia National University (2010) and the South East European University in Macedonia (2011), which IU helped found. In 2013, Thailand's National Institute for Development Administration awarded him its Prince Naradhip Bongsprabandha Plaque for services to international education.

He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012 and is an honorary fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. In 2007, he was made a Sagamore of the Wabash, the highest honor the State of Indiana can bestow on a private individual. And, in 2010, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia, Australia’s national honors system. In 2012, he was listed as one of America's 10 most popular university presidents.

Updated May 2013