Professor John V. Guttag, former associate head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), has been named the new department head as of January 15. Professors L. Rafael Reif and Tom������s Lozano-P�rez are the new associate department heads.
Professor Thomas Magnanti, dean of engineering and a professor in EECS, welcomed the new administration, saying, "John, Rafael and Tom������s will be an outstanding team, bringing different perspectives and technical expertise, but a common commitment to excellence in education, research and service to a department that is noted for its leadership within the electrical engineering and computer science communities. I very much look forward to working with them."
Provost Robert A. Brown, who announced the change of leadership when he was previously dean of engineering, applauded previous EECS head Paul L. Penfield Jr. and associate heads Jeffrey H. Shapiro and John Guttag. "Paul, Jeff and John have set high standards for excellence in academic leadership and administrative quality. I know that the department joins me and the rest of the MIT administration in thanking them for their service."
Professor Guttag is an expert in formal specification programs and does research in networking, computer and communications security, and advanced wireless communications systems. He leads the Software Devices and Systems group at the Laboratory for Computer Science and has been associate head of EECS for computer science and engineering since 1993.
He joined MIT as an associate professor in 1979, received tenure in 1983 and was promoted to full professor in 1988. Professor Guttag holds the AB and MSc degrees (1971 and 1972) from Brown University and the PhD (1975) from the University of Toronto.
Dr. Lozano-P�rez, the Cecil H. Green Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, took over as associate head of EECS for computer science on September 1, 1998, succeeding Professor Guttag. An MIT faculty member since 1981 and a member of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, he does research on planning robot motions utilizing computer vision, medical imaging, machine learning and computational geometry.
Professor Lozano-P�rez holds the SB (1973), SM (1977) and PhD (1980) from MIT. He was named an assistant professor in 1981 and an associate professor in 1984, received tenure in 1987 and was promoted to full professor in 1991. He was also associate director of the AI Lab from 1989-93.
Earlier this month, Professor Reif succeeded Professor Shapiro, who has served as associate department head for electrical science and engineering since 1989. Professor Reif is widely recognized for his work in semiconductor thin-film processing for microelectronics applications. His research focuses on future interconnect technologies, environmentally benign replacement chemistries for microelectronics fabrications, and thin-film metrology.
He came to the Institute as an assistant professor in 1980 and became an associate professor in 1983, received tenure in 1985 and achieved the rank of full professor in 1988. From 1990-98, Professor Reif was also director of the Microsystems Technology Laboratories. He holds the Ingeniero Electrico degree from Universidad de Carabobo (1973), and the MS (1975) and PhD (1979) from Stanford University.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on January 27, 1999.
