Dr. Juan E. Gilbert has raked in millions of research dollars and attracted top-tier minority faculty to the university’s School of Computing during his five years at Clemson University.
But now, Gilbert—a pioneer in the field of Human-Centered Computing—is leaving his post at the South Carolina public institution to become the Andrew Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Chair and the Associate Chair of Research Computer & Information Science & Engineering Department at the University of Florida.
And, he’s taking four of the school’s six Black computer science faculty members with him.
“I’m delighted, and the timing was right,” says Gilbert, 45, who had applied to become director of Clemson’s School of Computing that had been vacant for more than a year but adds that he experienced significant pushback from several colleagues on the search committee who didn’t want him to have the top job.
But before Gilbert could even interview for the position, UF had preempted the application process by flying him and several colleagues to Gainesville and offering them all jobs back in March.
“They gave me everything I asked for,” says Gilbert, who chaired the Human-Centered Computing division at Clemson. “And they let my faculty come.”
Dr. Cammy R. Abernathy, dean of UF’s College of Engineering, says that she was able to go on a hiring spree thanks to The UF Preeminence Plan. The $15 million state-funded initiative was created to help the university recruit superstar talent in life sciences, massive data, cybersecurity, Latin American development and other fields.
