College of Science & Engineering Alumni Newsletter

Fall 1997

Changing of the Guard and Welcoming New Researchers
By James C. Kelley

During the past several months a number of changes have occurred in the College. We have a new associate dean and three new department chairs. Dr. Susann Novalis, Associate Dean for 15 years, has returned to the Math Department faculty, and Dr. Dan Buttlaire, former Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, is now Associate Dean. Dr. Bruce Macher has succeeded him as chair. Dr. Zorica Pantic-Tanner is the new Director of the School of Engineering, the first woman to hold that position. Finally, after a national search, we have hired a new chair in the Department of Mathematics, Dr. Sheldon Axler. Dr. Axler comes to us from Michigan State University, where he was professor of mathematics. He is a nationally recognized research mathematician and is providing creative and dynamic leadership to that department.

Today much of the success of the College is due to the success of  the faculty in the pursuit of extramural funding, mainly through grants. Last year the faculty attracted approximately $14 million to the College, an amount about equal to the state budget for Science and Engineering. This activity allows our students to be involved in state-of-the-art research, to publish together with their faculty mentors and to present their results at major professional meetings. We believe that this sort of experience provides the very best education possible for our students and it certainly increases the intellectual vitality of the College.

In order to better serve our students, we have formed a corporate Advisory Board for the College. The board is comprised of senior executives from Bay Area technical companies, and they have been very helpful in ensuring that our curriculum meets the needs of the companies who will hire our students
on graduation.

The most recent additions to the board are Ross Ireland, Vice President for Network Engineering at PacBell, Charles Dietrick, General Manager of the Northern California District for Microsoft, and David Clementz, President of Chevron Information Technology Company. All the members of the board have worked for the good of the College. Last year the board contributed $50,000 to establish an Advisory Board Scholarship, and several of the companies represented have donated equipment. We are extremely grateful for their support.

We are well into another exciting year with several new faculty colleagues. In addition to Dr. Axler, we welcome Dr. Carmen Domingo, Dr. Ed Conners, Dr. Zheng-Hui He and Dr. Steven Weinstein to Biology, and Dr. Brian Schroth to Geosciences. We all feel energized by these new members of our faculty community. We hope you will get to know them. We welcome your visits to our on-line sites or in person at our Advisory Board lecture series, or the many departmental seminars given throughout the semester.
 
 

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