James Whalen, ISI Associate Director, and Chief Financial Officer leads the Administrative Services division at ISI, an organization committed to providing world class support to the Institute's research community. Achieving this objective is the result of attracting, developing and retaining an excellent team of committed, skilled and knowledgeable individuals in the areas of pre- and post-award, accounting, payroll, procurement, facilities, and business systems. He also oversees for The MOSIS Service division. He has responsibility for USC’s US Government Security Program, and is an USC Empowered Official for ITAR compliance and export.

Whalen joined USC in 1998 after 19 years in the aerospace industry, during which he helped win and manage Department of Defense advanced missile programs for Hughes Aircraft Company. He has also been a corporate merger-and-acquisition manager for Hughes Electronics, a role in which he led more than a dozen M&A projects. He is dedicated to applying tested financial management techniques, such as contingency theory, to optimize the interactions amongst staff, business processes and suites of software applications. Whalen earned his Master of Philosophy degree in Management at Oxford University.