Deborah Crawford is the Vice Chancellor for Research and leads the Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development. She joined the university in August 2020 and is a member of the chancellor’s cabinet. She is responsible for coordinating and overseeing the full range of the university’s research, innovation, and economic development programs, and raising the university’s national and international reputation.

Prior to coming to UT, Crawford served as vice president for research, innovation, and economic impact at George Mason University. She spent two years as the president and executive director of the International Computer Science Institute, a not-for-profit research institution in Berkeley, California, and four years as the senior vice provost for research at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She worked at the National Science Foundation for 17 years, where she held a number of executive leadership positions.

She has a PhD in Information Systems Engineering from the University of Bradford and a BS (Honors) in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from the University of Glasgow, both in the UK.