Vice President and Chief Information Officer Curtis A. Carver Jr., Ph.D., has been named the national CIO of the year in the nonprofit/public sector category at the Inspire CIO ORBIE awards.

In accepting the award, Carver highlighted his fellow nominees, his technology team and business partners at UAB, who work daily to alter the trajectory of lives through education.

“This isn’t about me,” Carver told those gathered at the national ORBIE Awards ceremony in Atlanta July 28. “My piece in this is the team I recruited, the team I’ve mentored, and the amazing work they do to transform lives and, during the pandemic, to save lives.”

Carver’s honor follows a statewide award from AlabamaCIO and CIO 100 in 2021.

"This is well-deserved recognition of Dr. Carver's outstanding leadership of our IT enterprise, which remains on the very leading-edge and among the best in the nation,” said UAB President Ray L. Watts, M.D. “He and his talented team are continually innovating — in terms of our infrastructure, operations, and client satisfaction — to the benefit of every department on our campus, helping UAB to thrive and excel in all pillars of our mission."

ORBIE finalists and winners are selected by an independent peer review process, with selection based on leadership and management effectiveness; business value created by technology innovation; and engagement in industry and community endeavors.

UAB IT continues to innovate and transform the university, working in partnership with distributed and central leaders as well as the Alabama technology community.

UAB IT catalogs wins for campus annually, aiming for at least 100 innovations per year. Since Carver’s tenure began at UAB in June 2015, the department has introduced more than 800 wins for the UAB community.

“We only use one word to describe our interactions with customers,” Carver said. “If it does not delight, we aimed too low.”