Faculty Profiles

Debra Calliss

Trevor Cohen

James Collofello

Partha Dasgupta

Dijiang Huang

Bill Lewis

Faye Navabi

Aviral Shrivastava

Guoliang Xue

Jieping Ye

faculty profiles

James Collofello ,

Professor, School of Computing and Informatics

While finishing his Ph.D. at Northwestern University, Jim Collofello visited Phoenix for an interview with a local company. While in town, he called ASU’s mathematics department to inquire whether any positions were available. He did a walk-on interview that day and became a professor in the math department in 1979.

“My philosophy was, ‘I’ll give it a try,’’ said Collofello, now the Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs at the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering. “I never got tired of it. And the university just kept changing.”

Collofello himself was instrumental in many of these changes, including his integral role in the launch of ASU’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering in 1980. “At that point in time, universities were just starting to form these departments. Computer science was being taught out of the business, math and engineering departments,” he said. “The promise was, we’d form a department, and we delivered.”

His current role as associate dean involves the development and coordination of various Fulton activities that include recruitment, advising, career services, the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative, curriculum and student retention. One of his recent efforts is the creation of programs that will globally engage engineering students. With the Office of Global Outreach and Extended Education, Collofello is researching various study abroad and overseas internship opportunities for Fulton’s undergraduate students. “It’s a global workplace,” he said. “We really do need to understand how people in other countries approach the engineering process and the different communications styles and cultures.”

Collofello continues to teach one computer science course per semester. “Being in a classroom, particularly with undergraduates, and getting them excited about the field is, to me, the most rewarding part.”