David Lassner
As the University of Hawaii’s first VP for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, Lassner was responsible for supporting academic and administrative computing; distributed learning technologies; and voice, data, and video telecommunication. He directed Information Technology Services, which provides technology support to the UH Mānoa campus and addresses statewide needs of the university system.
Since joining the University of Hawai‘i in 1977, Lassner has held a series of progressively more responsible technical, management and executive positions supporting the broad use of information technologies across the full mission of the university throughout the State. He is a member of UH Mānoa’s cooperating graduate faculty and has taught online and in person in the Department of Information and Computer Science, College of Business, School of Communication and College of Education. Lassner has also served on the faculty of management institutes for IT leaders nationally and internationally.
Lassner plays an active leadership role in a number of local, national and international organizations. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Kuali Foundation and EDUCAUSE. Lassner is a past chair of the Pacific Telecommunications Council and the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET), and has also served on the board of Internet2 and coordinated a variety of education projects for the Internet Society internationally. Locally, he has served on the Boards of Hawai‘i Public Television, the Hawai‘i High Technology Development Corporation where he chaired the Federal Relations Committee, and he chaired the Hawai‘i Broadband Task Force. Lassner was recently reappointed by the Senate President to the State of Hawai‘i Information Technology Steering Committee. Lassner has been recognized by WCET with the Richard Jonsen Award and by Internet 2 with the Richard Rose Award.
Lassner holds an AB summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in economics and a MS in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He earned a PhD in communication and information sciences from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and has been recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Hawai‘i.