IU Mourning Loss of Founding Dean of the Luddy School

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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAn acclaimed scholar and founding dean of the Indiana University Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering has died. IU says J. Michael Dunn passed away at the age of 79.
Dunn served IU for more than a half-century as a faculty member, researcher, and administrator. The university says Dunn was a world-renowned scholar, specializing in logic and the foundations of mathematics.
Dunn also engaged in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, and the formal and foundational aspects of computer science.
For IU President Michael McRobbie, the passing is personal. McRobbie first met Dunn at Australian National University where Dunn was a visiting professor in the mid-70s. McRobbie was a graduate student.
“I was truly fortunate to be mentored in my early days as a researcher by some truly great scholars and researchers, and Mike was at the very top of that list,” said McRobbie. “The first time I visited Bloomington was in 1985, and I stayed with Mike and his wife, Sally. Ten years later he was instrumental in nominating me for the position of IU’s first vice president for information technology in 1996. In a very real sense, I would not have been here were it not for Mike.”
McRobbie says Dunn made enormous contributions towards building IU’s use and application of information technology to advance the university’s teaching and research missions. In 1997, Dunn was appointed chair of IU’s University Information Technology Committee, which led to the establishment of an informatics program in 1998.
In 2000, IU President Myles Brand appointed Dunn the founding dean of the then-School of Informatics.
“In the more than two decades that have followed, we have witnessed the fruits of the vision, hard work and leadership to which Mike contributed and which has resulted in world-class IT infrastructure, services and facilities that have been critical in supporting excellence in almost every area of the university’s operations,” said McRobbie.
In 2007, Dunn was presented with the Sagamore of the Wabash, the highest award the state of Indiana can bestow upon one of its citizens.