About NJIT's Provost
The Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs is the senior academic administrator of NJIT and is responsible for the academic affairs of the university. Given the broad scope of Academic Affairs, numerous offices and entities are under the umbrella of the Provost’s Office. These include, for example, all academic schools and colleges, the Van Houten Library, the Office of Graduate Studies, the Office of International Students and the Office for Information Services and Technology. All of the faculty and instructional staff ultimately “report” to the Provost. The Provost collaborates with the President in setting overall academic priorities for the University and allocates funds to carry these priorities forward. The Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs is a member of the university’s senior administration; should the President be away or otherwise unavailable, the Provost may act as President should the need arise.
On Monday, May 3, 2010, Ian Gatley, PhD, internationally known in the fields of astronomy and imaging science, joined NJIT as its Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. His appointment is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics.
Born in England, Dr. Gatley received his B Sc with 1st class honors in Physics from Imperial College, University of London and his PhD in Physics from the California Institute of Technology where he studied under Eric Becklin, Michael Werner and Gerry Neugebauer on board NASA’s Kuiper Airborne Observatory. After receiving his PhD in Physics Dr. Gatley served as astronomer and project manager with the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope at Hilo, Hawaii and later led the infrared astronomy program at the US National Optical Astronomy Observatories in Tucson, Arizona. As chair of the US National Optical Astronomy Observatories Infrared Steering Committee Dr. Gatley led a multi-million dollar collaboration funded by the US Naval Observatory and the US National Optical Astronomy Observatories to develop the world’s largest InSb infrared detector array (the first megapixel device with a format of 1024 x 1024 pixels). This detector (code named Aladdin) was adopted by many of the major observatories around the world, and a large number of state-of-the-art scientific instruments were designed and built specifically to take advantage of its superior performance. Among a versatile suite of new instruments, Dr. Gatley and his team developed the first color infrared camera for Kitt Peak US National Observatory in collaboration with the Space Telescope Science Institute.
In 1997, Dr. Gatley became Director of the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science at Rochester Institute of Technology where he led the deployment of an Aladdin-based camera to a telescope located at the geographic South Pole. These efforts resulted in a successful proof of concept for an approach to data capture and management that ultimately spawned the “Data Cycle System for the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy.” Building on a growing strength in astronomy, RIT subsequently developed a new PhD program in Astrophysical Sciences and Technology.
While Director of the Carlson Center Dr. Gatley also served as Associate Director of the New York State-supported Center for Electronic Imaging Systems. From this position he co-authored a winning $14 million proposal for a New York State Strategically Targeted Academic Research (NY STAR) Center, The IT Collaboratory. This collaboration with the University at Buffalo’s Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Bio photonics and the NYS College of Ceramics at Alfred University integrates Nano-material science, Microsystems, photonics, remote sensing systems, and information technologies.
Following his position as Director of the Carlson Center, Dr. Gatley was appointed Dean of the College of Science at RIT, where he took a special interest in reinforcing the culture of undergraduate research for all students, particularly those in the honors program. In his most recent appointment at RIT, Dr. Gatley lead the Center of Student Innovation, a hub and clearing-house of RIT innovation resources.
Dr. Gatley is a prolific scholar well-known in astronomy and imaging science. His scholarship has been cited approximately 5,000 times.