R. Michael Tanner is Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Provost Tanner joined UIC in 2002 after a thirty year career at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he was Executive Vice Chancellor for nine years, serving as chief operating officer for a campus of 11,500 students. In 2000, Dr. Tanner led the creation of the University of California Silicon Valley Center, a satellite campus for 2,000 students at the NASA Research Park in the NASA Ames Research Center, in the heart of Silicon Valley. He holds bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Provost Tanner is the chief operating officer for the UIC campus, responsible for the budget and all academic issues. He oversees fifteen colleges, the library, and the academic computing center. At UIC, Provost Tanner has focused on hiring outstanding leaders, building community, sharpening campus focus and direction, enhancing the undergraduate experience, promoting multi-disciplinary research and innovation and advancing broad-based engagement with issues of diversity. Under his leadership and despite funding challenges, UIC has made great strides in defining its mission and advancing toward the goal of being recognized as a premier public urban research university. 

Provost Tanner’s principal research interests are in coding and information theory; he is recognized as the founder of the field of “codes on graphs,” and he is an expert on systems that correct errors in digital messages. He holds four patents and is a Fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.

Among Dr. Tanner’s personal interests are issues of sustainability and energy consumption. In 2003, he chaired a University of Illinois utility committee to study energy production, procurement and consumption.  Since 2007, he has co-chaired a second University energy task force, which authored a policy on energy conservation.  The recommendations of the Task Force are causing fundamental changes in the way the University as a whole approaches its energy systems.

Provost Tanner has become involved in national discussions concerning copyrights in the information age and new models of publishing, such as Open Access.  He has presented on this topic at UIC, other universities, and at national meetings.