Top leadership is shifting at the University of Washington’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, as Director Magdalena Balazinska‘s term concludes after nearly seven years. Dan Grossman, the school’s vice director and a long-time faculty member, will take over as interim director.
The leadership transition officially takes effect Aug. 17.
The school and the UW College of Engineering are expected to announce the move Monday morning, following separate emails sent to Allen School faculty and staff by both professors (in full below).
Balazinska wrote that she will take a “long-awaited sabbatical” before returning to teaching, calling the transition something “we have been planning and discussing for a while.” Grossman sought to reassure the community that “the transition will be smooth and not the cause of any significant changes.”
According to the Allen School, Balazinska was initially appointed to a 5-year term, which is the norm. Extending the term of a director or chair is not considered unusual at the UW or in the Allen School, but Balazinska did not want to extend beyond an additional year or so.
The interim leadership structure with Grossman will remain in place for roughly a year while UW leadership considers recommendations from a Provost task force on how the institution should organize its broader computing, data science, and AI initiatives.
The Task Force on Computing and Data Science was established earlier this year to evaluate whether the university’s administrative and academic structures are properly built to support the rapid growth of computing, AI, and data science. A central focus of the mandate was assessing limitations in the current model — where computing resides within the College of Engineering — and identifying alternative organizational structures, including independent units or cross-university institutes, to enhance research leadership, external partnerships, and student pathways.
Grossman, who served on the task force, said that the group recently completed its report for Provost Tricia Serio and President Robert Jones to review. Balazinska said, “it will take time for the President and Provost to consider and act on recommendations related to task force findings.”
“UW is working seriously on how to best position itself to lead in computing in the decades ahead and the Allen School will, of course, be a key part of that,” Grossman wrote.
Major growth for Allen School
Balazinska was named Allen School director in July 2019, officially taking the helm in January 2020 following the 13-year tenure of former director Hank Levy.
Prior to leading the Allen School, she served as director of the UW eScience Institute and as the university’s first Associate Vice Provost for Data Science. In those roles, she spearheaded the creation of UW’s undergraduate and graduate data science degree tracks, pushing to integrate data-intensive discovery into fields ranging from astronomy to oceanography.
An expert in database management systems, Balazinska joined the UW faculty in 2006 after earning her Ph.D. in computer science from MIT.
Her research career has focused on scalable distributed data systems, cloud computing, big data processing, and image and video analytics. More recently, her work has expanded to multimodal data management and the intersection of AI and data systems.
Her work in the field earned her the inaugural Women in Database Research Award, as well as selection as an ACM Fellow.
Under Balazinska’s leadership, the Allen School saw a 50% surge in graduate degrees awarded since 2019 alongside the addition of 40 new faculty members.
The school awarded more than 800 degrees this year across its undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs.
Balazinska, who is also the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science, oversaw a major modernization of the school’s core curriculum. Her tenure saw an overhaul of the introductory programming sequence, the launch of an undergraduate research program, a new Graduate Certificate in Modern AI Methods, and the creation of a Data Science minor, with an AI minor currently in development.
In her email, Balazinska expressed enthusiasm about returning to her core passion after taking time away during her sabbatical.
“I am looking forward to returning to research, advising, and teaching,” she wrote, noting that she plans to rejoin the Allen School faculty full-time following her break.
‘My dream job’
Grossman has served as vice director for nine years, and alongside Balazinska throughout her seven-year tenure, acting as her primary partner in managing the school’s academic programs, faculty affairs, and strategic planning.
“To me, the Allen School is much more than one of the leading computer science and engineering programs in the world,” Grossman said in a statement. “It has been my professional home since I completed my Ph.D. 23 years ago. It was my dream job then, and it’s my dream job now.”
A long-time UW faculty member and expert in programming languages and computing education, Grossman has frequently paired with Balazinska to navigate the department’s response to seismic industry shifts.
Most recently, the duo collaborated on public-facing efforts to address growing student anxiety surrounding AI’s impact on tech careers, advocating for curriculum updates that integrate AI tools while reinforcing core software engineering fundamentals.
Beyond administrative duties, Grossman has maintained a heavy presence in the classroom, teaching courses in programming languages, software design, and computer ethics. He also leads the school’s direct-admit seminar for first-year majors and created a popular online programming course on Coursera that reached thousands of students over the past decade.
“I could not be more grateful to Dan for stepping into the interim director role,” Balazinska noted in her email to staff. “He understands every corner of the Allen School, cares deeply about our students and faculty, and will provide outstanding leadership as the university navigates the next steps for computing.”
Nancy Allbritton, dean of the College of Engineering, said in a statement that Grossman’s appointment “will ensure strong leadership and continuity during a period of thoughtful planning for the future.”
Allbritton also expressed her gratitude to Balazinska for her “exceptional service and leadership” as the Allen School “strengthened its standing as one of the nation’s leading computing programs while advancing its impact in AI, data science, and emerging areas across research and education.”
Read Magdalina Balazinska’s email to Allen School faculty and staff:
Dear Faculty and Staff,
As we have been planning and discussing for a while, my term as Allen School director is coming to an end. Later today, the Dean will formally announce the appointment of Dan Grossman as Interim Director when my term officially ends on August 17th and I take a long-awaited sabbatical.
We will have an Interim Director for the next year or so because of the ongoing conversations on Computing, Data Science, and AI at UW, and how the University should organize itself and its efforts related to those important topics. Although the Provost Task Force is completing its work this summer, it will take time for the President and Provost to consider and act on the recommendations, and an interim appointment makes sense in that context.
My deep thanks to Dan for his willingness to assume this responsibility, and for the wonderful support he has provided to me in his role as Vice Director for the past 7 years. Dan and I have worked together ever since we joined UW as newly minted Assistant Professors over 20 years ago! Dan is a thoughtful leader who cares deeply about the success and well-being of our faculty, students and staff. I’m delighted that he agreed to take on this role at such a critical time for computer science education, for our University, and for higher education more generally.
As Director of the Allen School for nearly seven years, I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished — through some of the most turbulent times since we were founded as the “Computer Science Group” 60 years ago. We have not merely weathered those challenges — we’ve thrived.
Our accomplishments are too numerous to list in a short email, but a few highlights include:
We’ve grown substantially, graduating 50% more students today than in 2019, hiring 40 new faculty members (and also celebrating some retirements and other departures), and overhauling most of our processes to operate at this new, larger scale.
But we haven’t just grown, we’ve modernized our core educational programs, including our Ph.D. quals and undergraduate intro-to-programming sequence, while launching new ones: our Undergraduate Research Program, our Graduate Certificate in Modern AI Methods, the UW Data Science Minor (whose creation we co-led), and — now underway — a UW AI Minor. Along the way, we’ve introduced many new courses spanning quantum computing to AI-assisted software engineering.
Beyond the classroom, we’ve launched new research centers, initiatives, grand challenges, and research groups — including CREATE, Computing for the Environment, Globe.AI, and the Center for Learning, Computing, and Imagination, to name just a few among many others. We’ve also modernized our communications and website, expanded our research infrastructure, and raised very significant funds for new professorships, scholarships, fellowships, research projects, and other school activities.
We’ve also deepened our community support and activities — with new programming for undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and staff.
While working on the above, we’ve celebrated everyone’s ideas, accomplishments, and impact including our students, researchers and staff winning some of the most prestigious honors on our campus and in our field. It has been wonderful to witness firsthand all that you have achieved and to cheer you on!
It has been a tremendous privilege to serve as director of the Allen School. I’m grateful to you — the members of our community — for giving your best every day to advance our educational and research missions and expand our impact, sharing your ideas for how we could improve, and giving me — and each other — grace as we navigated new and often unexpected challenges.
After a brief break in which I will see my daughter off to college(!), I’m looking forward to returning my attention full-time to advising my students and pursuing my research, while also supporting Dan in his new role together with the rest of the Allen School faculty and staff leadership.
Thank you for inspiring me, challenging me and supporting me over the past seven years. It has been a wonderful journey, and I learned so much about our community and myself along the way. And to my good friend and colleague Dan, congratulations!
magda
Read Dan Grossman’s email to faculty and staff:
Dear Allen School community,
Though you’ve already heard from Magda about the upcoming Allen School leadership transition, I wanted to send my own message as I work on transitioning into the Interim Director role.
First and foremost, I want to speak both for the full community and for myself personally in thanking Magda for her leadership over the last seven years. She has been truly extraordinary, managing both significant unexpected challenges (a pandemic is just one of several) and launching new initiatives across research, education, and how we organize ourselves that have set us up well for long-term success. Her steady, thoughtful, even-handed leadership is recognized throughout our community. Having worked closely with Magda, I want to add specifically, in case it isn’t as visible, two things: how she has sought out advice to reach consensus and develop new leaders, and how she has simply put in an enormous amount of time. Her sabbatical has been earned a thousand times over, but I’m also relieved that she isn’t going away and will be a key mentor and leader in the Allen School going forward. Thank you, Magda!
I want to assure everyone the transition will be smooth and not the cause of any significant changes – Magda has been planning to step down, and the staff and faculty leadership are ready. That’s not to say we won’t continue to change, in some ways rapidly, because that’s what we do as a leading school in a rapidly changing field and world. These are challenging times! The discussions I hear throughout the school on how we should adapt how we teach and learn, how we conduct research, and how we run the school’s operations are robust and exciting. They are also a lot of work by a lot of people, and I want to say that this work is not as ‘invisible’ as it may seem.
While these are challenging times in multiple ways, it is also a time of great opportunity. Technology continues to change all aspects of our lives and we are well positioned to create new technologies that make everyone’s lives better and that help our planet, while also influencing policies to ensure responsible use of new technologies. I see many opportunities for us to grow our partnerships with other units, with external collaborators, and within our School to accomplish those important goals while educating a highly skilled, knowledgeable, and ethical next generation of computer scientists and computer engineers.
Let me also emphasize that “the Allen School” needs your help in reaching our aspirations. No Director, interim or not, can alone do even a small fraction of everything we aim to do. To be honest, I find it a bit odd when I hear “the Allen School does X” or “the Allen School thinks Y.” “The Allen School” is us, nothing more and nothing less, a collection of hard-working people with diverse personalities, ideas, and preferred coffee/tea orders. (Strange fact about me: I don’t like tea.) I’m proud to be working alongside each of you, and I am excited for us to continue working together to set the future course of the Allen School.
As Magda mentioned, the rationale for not having done a Director search over the last year is that it is complicated by the ongoing university-level discussions and processes on Computing, Data Science, and AI at UW, and how the University should organize itself. I was on the relevant “Task Force” that recently completed its report, and now the Provost and President will need to make decisions and launch next steps. When we have information about these next steps and how they affect us, including the timing for a non-interim director search, I will be sure to let you know. We should be excited by this – UW is working seriously on how to best position itself to lead in computing in the decades ahead and the Allen School will, of course, be a key part of that.
Thank you in advance for everything we will accomplish in the year ahead. Please don’t hesitate to stop me in the hallway or send me an email with your ideas or even just to say hello.
Best,
Dan
Read the full article here
