Thomas J. LeBlanc Named Executive Vice President and Provost

President Donna E. Shalala announced today the appointment of Thomas J. LeBlanc as the new executive vice president and provost of the University. LeBlanc, currently the vice provost and Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull Dean of the Faculty for the College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering at the University of Rochester in New York, will join the University on July 1.

LeBlanc will serve as the University's chief academic officer and chief budget officer, overseeing its 12 schools and colleges, research administration, students, admissions, and research funding and expenditures. In his current position, he oversees the College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering, as well as undergraduate and graduate programs, research and graduate studies, admissions, student life and services, and Division III athletics. He also is a tenured professor of computer science, and before becoming vice provost and dean, he chaired the Department of Computer Science.

"We are delighted to have Tom LeBlanc, an energetic, gifted academic leader as well as a seasoned administrator, assume the position of executive vice president and provost of the University," said President Shalala.

Among LeBlanc's accomplishments at the University of Rochester are overseeing the implementation of the new undergraduate curriculum; improving undergraduate recruitment and retention; raising the average SAT score of incoming freshmen; and restructuring the entire undergraduate experience, including housing, advising, and the writing program. In addition, he spearheaded university efforts in public-private partnerships with numerous Fortune 500 companies.

LeBlanc is also credited with building the structure for the College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering; initiating and implementing new policies for managing the college's intellectual property; creating the department of biomedical engineering with the University of Rochester Medical Center; reviving the Institute of Optics, the leading program of its kind in the nation; and reestablishing the interdisciplinary Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies.

"The search committee was able to identify a highly qualified field of candidates," said Dennis Lynch, dean of the School of Law and chair of the search committee. "We're very pleased with the results of this search, and we're confident that Tom LeBlanc will be an excellent provost."

LeBlanc, who lived for a time in Brazil, is conversant in Portuguese and has studied Spanish as well. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1982. He has published extensively in the field of computer science, and his research interests include the development of software systems for parallel programming, including programming models, and the role of debugging and performance tuning. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Defense, and the Office of Naval Research, which named him the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator in computer science in 1987.

"Joining the University of Miami is an exciting challenge and a great opportunity," said LeBlanc. "It's a private research university, which is my world, and the University is a central part of an exciting and booming region."

LeBlanc, 49, is relocating to South Florida with his wife, Anne Marie. They have two sons, Brian, a student at Rice University, and David, a student at the University of Rochester.