Michael Conlon

Dr. Michael Conlon (“Mike”) came to Gainesville in 1975, as a graduate student in Statistics, with research interests in statistical computing and algorithms, having earned BA degrees in Mathematics and Economics from Bucknell University. Over the next forty years, Mike published seven books and 65 papers in statistics and health disciplines, taught regularly and joyfully, and was awarded $135 million in research grants as PI/co-PI.

Mike served in the dean’s offices of both Liberal Arts and Medicine. A pioneer in Internet technology—UF’s first email systems, web servers, and networked classrooms, Mike led the team that designed the first UF website, created the first graphic image of UF for the web, and made the UF catalog available on the web for the first time. Mike was CIO for the Health Science Center, and the technical lead for the PeopleSoft project, implementing new administrative systems for UF. In 1997, Mike’s team at Biostatistics developed the world’s first on-line clinical trial system, collecting data on 22,000 patients in 18 countries at over 800 clinical sites. In 2009, Mike was awarded UF’s largest ARRA award and led a seven-school consortium to develop and promote VIVO, an open-source system for representing the scholarship of an institution. VIVO transitioned to member support and is in use at over 160 schools in 28 countries. Mike stepped down as project director in 2022.

Mike served as co-director of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute, leading its development from inception to one of the nation’s premier research organizations. Mike retired in 2015 and was named emeritus. From 2019 to 2023, Mike served as co-PI of the National Metabolomics Coordinating Center of the NIH Common Fund.

More recently, Mike has served on the board of the Gainesville Opportunity Center, a day program serving adults living with mental illness. Mike sings tenor in the Holy Faith Catholic Church choir, is the father of three and grandfather of six. In his spare time, Mike likes to work on his wooded property and care for the home he designed and built in the 80s. Most recently, Mike has written a book of short stories based on science, The Next Hundred Years. michaelconlonauthor.com