Indian-origin academic Anantha Chandrakasan named dean of MIT's School of Engineering

Cambridge (Massachusetts): Indian-origin academician Anantha Chandrakasan has been named dean of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s School of Engineering.

The Vannevar Bush Professor and head of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) will succeed Ian Waitz on 1 July, who will become the Vice-Chancellor of MIT.

Chandrakasan spent six years as the head of EECS where he pushed initiatives, which allowed students and faculty to conduct research and explore entrepreneurial projects.

Most initiatives were developed with students’ input. Some of them include Advanced Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (SuperUROP), Rising Stars (annual event for graduate/post-doc women), Postdoc6 (for developing skills), StartMIT (opportunity to learn and interact with industry leaders).

Chandrakasan was born in Chennai and moved to the US while in high school. He earned his BS (1989), MS (1990), and PhD (1994) from the University of California.

He joined the MIT faculty in 1994. He primarily focuses on making electronic circuits more energy efficient. His early work on low-power chips for portable computers helped make possible the development of today’s smartphones.

In his recent research, he addressed the challenge of powering even more energy-constrained technologies, such as the “internet of things” that would allow many everyday devices to send and receive data via networked servers while being powered from a tiny energy source.

MIT President L. Rafael Reif stated, “Anantha balances his intellectual creativity and infectious energy with a remarkable ability to deeply listen to, learn from, and integrate other people’s views into a compelling vision.”

Designer of low-power chips

• Anantha Chandrakasan is the Vannevar Bush Professor and head of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)
• Chandrakasan spent six years as the head of EECS where he pushed initiatives, which allowed students and faculty to conduct research and explore entrepreneurial projects
• Chandrakasan was born in Chennai and moved to the US while in high school
• He joined the MIT faculty in 1994. His early work includes designing low-power chips for portable computers helped make possible the development of today’s smartphones