José-Marie Griffiths

José-Marie Griffiths (born 31 March 1952)^[1] is the president of Dakota State University in the United States.^[2][3] She also serves as an independent director at Daktronics, Inc. and formerly held the role of vice president of Academic Affairs at Bryant University.^[4]

She holds a Bachelor of Science degree (BSc) in Physics with Honours and a PhD in Information Science from University College, London.^[4][5] She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Computer Science and Statistics at University College, London,^[6] and has been awarded an Honorary degree in Science by the same institution.^[7]

In 1992, Griffiths was appointed director of the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee. In 1994, she additionally assumed the role of vice chancellor for Computing & Telecommunications/Informations Infrastructure at the same institution, a position she held until 1996.^[4][8][9]

From 1996 to 2001, she served as chief information officer at the University of Michigan. During this period, she was also a commissioner of the Michigan Information Technology Commission and a professor of information.^[4][10]

Griffiths has served on various national committees and advisory bodies in the United States. She was a member of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science between 1996 and 2003, a position that she was appointed to by the President of the United States.^[11][12] She received a further two presidential appointments: serving on the Information Technology Advisory Committee in 2005 and the National Science Board from 2006 until 2012.^{[2][5][6][13]}

Between 2004 and 2006, Griffiths was director of the National Science Foundation and led projects for the Department of Energy, the National Institute of Health, and NASA (2004-2006) among others.^[14][3][2]

From 2001 to 2004, she was director of the Sara Fine Institute for Interpersonal Behavior and Technology,^[4] and held the Doreen E. Boyce Chair in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh.^[4][9]

Griffiths served as dean of the School of Information and Library Sciences at the University of North Carolina from 2004 to 2009.^[4][9][15]

From 2010 to 2015, Griffiths was vice president for Academic Affairs and professor at Bryant University in Rhode Island,^[5][4] after which she became president of Dakota State University in Madison, South Dakota.^{[3][16][6][17]}

Griffiths was a member of the Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and National Security at the Center for a New American Security (CNSA),^[18][19] and contributed to the Education Summit (1996-2001) and the White House Cyber Workforce initiative.^[18] Additionally, Griffiths is an expert advisor for the National Science & Technology Medals Foundation.^[20]

In 2018, she was nominated by the then-Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportations, Senator John Thune, to serve on the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI).^[3][4][21]

Griffiths was appointed to the board of directors at Daktronics on 2 September 2020.^[22]

In June 2021, Griffiths participated in a panel on responsible AI hosted by the Women’s Foreign Policy Group (WFPG) to discuss the recent report of the NSCAI.^[23] The commission concluded its work in October 2021 after it released its final report.^[24] Also in 2021, she became an expert advisor to the Special Competitive Studies Projects (SCSP) which continues aspects of the NSCAI’s work.^[25][26]

Griffiths is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.^[2][5] She is also the author or co-author of nine books and numerous other publications.^[2][5]

She was married to the late Donald King, a statistician and pioneer in information science, who died in 2019. She has one daughter and five stepdaughters.^[27]

• Award of Merit, American Society for Information Science and Technology^[2][5]
• Research Award, American Society for Information Science and Technology^[2][5]
• Top 25 Women on the Web (WoW), 1999^[5]
• Top 25 Women on the Web (WoW), 17 April 2007, San Francisco (SFWoW)^[12]
• One of the 50 Influential Women in AI listed by InspiredMinds!^[28]
• Chief Executive Leadership Award for District VI, Council for Advancement and Support of Education^[29]
• South Dakota Hall of Fame in 2023^[30][31][32]
• USA Today Women of the Year for South Dakota, 2024^[33][34][35]

• Office of the President of the Dakota State University