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EECS head Chandrakasan announces new leadership team

Anantha Chandrakasan, the Joseph F. and Nancy P. Keithley Professor of Electrical Engineering and, since July 1, head of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, has announced his leadership team, which includes several new positions.

EECS faculty members Munther Dahleh and Bill Freeman have been selected to serve as associate department heads for three-year terms.

Munther Dahleh, a professor of engineering and computer science, joined the faculty in 1987. He is internationally known for his fundamental contributions to robust control theory, computational methods for controller design, the interplay between information and control, the fundamental limits of learning and decision in networked systems, and the detection and mitigation of systemic risk in interconnected and networked systems. Dahleh has taught many courses in EECS both at the undergraduate and graduate levels and received the graduate students' best teaching award. He was associate director of MIT's Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems from 2007 to 2010 and acting director in 2010-11. He also served on many Institute and department committees and is currently a housemaster at MacGregor House.

Bill Freeman, a professor of computer science and engineering, joined the faculty in 2001 and is a world-renowned leader in the fields of computer vision, computational photography and machine learning. Freeman is active in the program and organizing committees of the major computer-vision, graphics and machine-learning conferences. He served as the program co-chair for the International Conference on Computer Vision in 2005, and will be the program co-chair for Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition in 2013. Freeman has worked at Polaroid, developing image-processing algorithms for electronic cameras and printers, and from 1992 to 2001, he was a senior research scientist and associate director at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs in Cambridge, Mass. He was associate director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory during 2010.

Chandrakasan also announced the selection of two education officers for the department: faculty members Saman Amarasinghe and Jacob White. Chandrakasan says, "Between them, [Amarasinghe and White] span a broad range of technical areas from devices, modeling and circuit design to system architectures and software systems." They will each serve a three-year term.

Amarasinghe, a professor of computer science and engineering, is a world-renowned leader in compiler technology. His research interests are in discovering novel approaches to improve the performance of modern computer systems and make them more secure without unduly increasing the complexity faced by the end users, application developers, compiler writers or computer architects. As an EECS faculty member since 1997, Amarasinghe has been involved with teaching many courses in EECS including 6.001, 6.004, 6.005, 6.033, 6.035, 6.170 and 6.172. Currently he is co-developing 6.172, a class on performance engineering of software systems.

White, the Cecil H. Green Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), is widely known for his contributions to linear, nonlinear and parameterized model reduction, and for the methods for solving integral equations that resulted in the fast interconnect-analysis programs Fastcap and Fasthenry and the fast fluid-flow-analysis program Faststokes. In 2011, White received an EECS department Jamieson Award for his contributions to course and curriculum development, having helped develop two graduate numerical courses as well as both of the department's new introductory courses, 6.01 and 6.02.

Dennis Freeman, a professor of electrical engineering who has served as education officer since spring 2009, has been selected by Chandrakasan as undergraduate officer. A member of the faculty since 1995, Freeman has become internationally known for his research in cochlear micromechanics. Freeman is also recognized for his contributions in education as a member of the EECS Curriculum Initiative Committee from 2004 to 2007, and as chair of MIT's Committee on the Undergraduate Program from 2005 to 2009. He has won a number of teaching awards, including the 2005 Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching, and has been a MacVicar Faculty Fellow since 2006.

Leslie Kolodziejski will continue (since Nov. 2010) in her role as EECS graduate officer. As a member of the EECS faculty since 1988, Kolodziejski supervises the Integrated Photonic Devices and Materials Group in Research Laboratory of Electronics, and also the Nanoprecision Deposition Laboratory. Her research is internationally recognized and includes numerous contributions to the growth of photonic materials by molecular beam epitaxy and the fabrication of novel photonic devices. Kolodziejski has taught at both the graduate and undergraduate level. She was awarded the Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising by the School of Engineering in 2009 and the EECS-Graduate Student Association Graduate Counseling Award in 2007.

Chandrakasan also announced the appointment of Steven B. Leeb as the EECS instructional labs officer. Leeb is widely known for his innovative research in power electronics, power monitoring and energy conversion. He has won a number of awards for research and teaching, including the MIT Harold E. Edgerton Award (1998), the IEEE Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer (1999), the Eta Kappa Nu EECS Undergraduate Teaching Award (2006), election as an IEEE Fellow (2007), and a MacVicar Faculty Fellowship (since 2004). In announcing this appointment, Chandrakasan said: "As EECS instructional labs officer, Steve will have oversight of the EECS teaching laboratories to ensure that they continue to ignite passion, connect theory to practice for our students, and function as an effective teaching venue for our faculty and staff."

Chandrakasan’s team also includes Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Frederick C. Hennie III and Administrative Officer Agnes Chow. Hennie served as chairman of the faculty committee in charge of the undergraduate computer science program within EECS from 1969 to 1976. He served as executive officer of EECS for many years — continuing in that role part time since 2001 — now serving as EECS advisor.

Chow has been the administrative officer for EECS since 2005. She has held several leadership roles in her 20-plus year career at MIT. Chow is a recipient of the 2004-2005 MIT Excellence Award for "Going Above and Beyond," and a recipient of the Schoolf of Engineering 2010 Ellen J. Mandigo Award for Outstanding Service. She will continue as a key member of the EECS leadership team.

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