Stony Brook University has announced the appointment of Lav Varshney as the inaugural director of its Artificial Intelligence Innovation Institute (AI3). The decision follows a national search, and Varshney will also hold the Della Pietra Infinity Chair.
Varshney joins Stony Brook from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he was a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His previous roles included affiliations with various departments such as computer science, neuroscience, and digital agriculture.
Carl W. Lejuez, executive vice president and provost at Stony Brook, commented on Varshney's appointment: “Lav exemplifies the ethos and vision of Stony Brook’s AI3. He is committed to working across disciplines to find actionable solutions that will have a meaningful, positive impact on society.” Lejuez expressed confidence in Varshney's ability to lead AI3 in catalyzing core AI research and curriculum innovation.
In his new role, Varshney will continue work initiated by more than 40 faculty and staff members who developed AI3's initial plans. His leadership aims to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration across the university while supporting New York State's $250 million Empire AI investment.
Varshney brings experience from industry, academia, government think tanks, and national laboratories. His research covers artificial intelligence foundations and applications as well as technology innovation. Additionally, he holds visiting scholar status at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and has positions with RAND Corporation and Brookhaven National Lab.
He is also involved in private sector initiatives as chief scientist at Ensaras—a company focused on automating wastewater systems—and CEO/co-founder of Kocree—an AI start-up aimed at democratizing music creativity.
Stephen Della Pietra from the Stony Brook Foundation highlighted their support for this initiative: “We are honored to have created the Della Pietra Infinity Chair and excited to welcome Lav Varshney to advance the field of artificial intelligence here at Stony Brook University.”
Vincent Della Pietra added: “We are thrilled to have someone as distinguished as Lav Varshney... identified by our incoming president Andrea Goldsmith as a key area for Stony Brook’s future.”
Varshney has received numerous grants from agencies like DARPA, NSF, Army Air Force among others alongside private companies including IBM Meta Amazon NVIDIA Google etc., authoring over 300 papers across prestigious conferences journals throughout his career while advising many students along way too!