Vice Provost, James Madison University
E-mail: noftsijb@jmu.edu
Phone: (540) 568-2700
Areas of Interest
1) critical infrastructure protection
2) information assurance
3) science and technology policy
Biography
Dr. John B. Noftsinger, Jr. is Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs for Research and Public Service, Executive Director of the Institute for Infrastructure and Information Assurance, and Associate Professor of Integrated Science and Technology and Education at James Madison University.
He has primary responsibility for facilitating external grant and contract funding, homeland defense and security research programs, economic development, intellectual property and technology transfer, and academic public relations and service programs. He specializes in interdisciplinary program and grant development for the university. He has served in this capacity since 1998. His state-wide leadership was recognized when he was appointed by the Governor of Virginia as Co-Chair of the Virginia Research and Technology Advisory Commission, which he has served on since its inception in 1999.
Since beginning employment at JMU in 1989, Dr. Noftsinger has served as PI or Co-PI for more than 9.7 million dollars in Sponsored Programs. Dr. Noftsinger has spearheaded the successful development, funding, and implementation of a variety of key programs at JMU including: Institute for Infrastructure and Information Assurance, Critical Infrastructure Protection Project, Mine Action Information Center, Shenandoah Valley Technology Council, Virginia’s Manufacturing Innovation Center, Shenandoah Valley Partnership, Workforce Information Network (WIN), Civil War Institute, Valley of Virginia Partnership for Education, William R. Nelson Institute for Public Affairs, and the Shenandoah Valley Business Gateway, resulting in millions more in external funding, new jobs, and research projects for the region. With the assistance of creative and dedicated faculty and staff colleagues, sponsored program funding to JMU has increased 600%, from $3 million in 1995 to $21.5 million in 2004, under his marketing and leadership of the area.
He is a founding member of the Executive Committee of the Virginia Institute for Defense and Homeland Security and Deputy Chairman of the University of Virginia’s Critical Incident Analysis Group (CIAG) Steering Committee. He was a founder and served as the first President of the Shenandoah Valley Technology Council from 1997-2003, and was a founder, Board member, and is currently the Vice Chairman of the Virginia Technology Alliance. He was a member of the Governor’s Council on Technology Services and the General Assembly’s Joint Commission on Technology and Science (JCOTS) Advisory Committee. He is currently serving on the JCOTS Nanotechnology Advisory Committee. In these roles, he has been an innovative leader in developing science and technology policy and economic development in the Shenandoah Valley and across the Commonwealth.
A native of Roanoke, Virginia, he is a 1985 cum laude graduate of James Madison University with a double major in Political Science and Public Administration and a minor in Business Administration. As an undergraduate at Madison, he was selected as the first student to serve on the JMU Board of Visitors, as well as Who’s Who, Omicron Delta Kappa, and Mortar Board. He received his Master of Arts degree in Higher Education Administration from The Ohio State University in 1987. In 1997, he received his doctoral degree in the Higher Education Program at the University of Virginia, where he was the 1994 winner of the Annette Gibbs Award for scholarly achievement in the program. His minor programs of study in the doctoral program at UVA were Research Methodology and Adult Education.
Prior to his tenure at JMU, Dr. Noftsinger held administrative positions at Frostburg State University in Maryland from 1987-89 and at The Ohio State University from 1985-87. He came to JMU in 1989 as Director of Continuing Education and External Programs and Administrator of the Valley of Virginia Consortium for Higher Education. He was appointed Deputy Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1993-94 and returned to JMU in 1994 as Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs. He served in that capacity until 1996 when he was selected to serve as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Development and Partnership Programs, a position he held from 1996-1998, when he was promoted to Associate Vice President. Dr. Noftsinger teaches both in the Integrated Science and Technology undergraduate and graduate program and in the graduate education program.
He has presented at numerous local, regional, national and international conferences and has published significantly in the area of education/community partnerships, economic development, homeland security and defense, public policy, higher education, and strategic leadership, including co-editing a book entitled Leveraging Resources Through Partnerships, published by Jossey-Bass in 2002. His upcoming book, Homeland Security: Policy, Perspectives, and Paradoxes, will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2006. He is also a consultant in the fields of leadership development, strategic alliances, organizational change, public policy and technology-based economic development.
Dr. Noftsinger is the President of the Board of the National Association for Consortium Leadership. He is the former Chairman and an eight-year member of the Board of Directors of the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. He serves as a Board member of the Shenandoah Valley Technology Council, where he was the 2005 winner of Shentel’s High Tech Leadership Award and also received the organization’s Distinguished Service Award in 2001. He currently serves as a board member for the Shenandoah Valley Partnership, the Southeastern Universities Research Association, the Stonewall Jackson Council of the Boy Scouts of America, and the Harrisonburg/Rockingham Chamber of Commerce. He is also a former Board member and President of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Harrisonburg/Rockingham County. He was named by Congressmen Frank Wolf, Bob Goodlatte, and Rick Boucher as Secretary of the I-81 Safety Commission. He has been an invited presenter at a White House Workshop on the role of Higher Education in Critical Infrastructure protection and at a U.S. Department of Commerce workshop on Technology Transfer.
He and his wife live in Harrisonburg and enjoy exploring the Shenandoah Valley with their three children. Dr. Noftsinger also enjoys mountain biking, skiing, hiking, golf, and is a starting center/winger for the champion JMU Faculty/Staff Hockey Team.