Balakrishnan named Dean at Case Western Reserve University
Balakrishnan earned his undergraduate degree in India, and then went on to receive two master’s degrees and his PhD from Stanford University. After postdoctoral stints at Stanford, the California Institute of Technology and the University of Maryland, he joined the Purdue faculty in 1994. He has been the head of ECE since 2010, and served as the associate dean of research in the College of Engineering from 2007 to 2010. Balakrishnan is a Fellow of the IEEE and is an accomplished researcher in the areas of control, and the application of convex optimization to problems from systems, control, robotics, communication and signal processing.
“For almost a decade, Ragu has been an outstanding head of ECE, one of the largest schools at Purdue and consistently ranked among the top 10 in the nation. Under Ragu’s tremendous leadership, Purdue ECE’s faculty grew, physical facility expanded, research excellence continued, and educational innovation accelerated. All of us in the College of Engineering are very thankful for his dedication and service. Ragu will be sorely missed by ECE and the Purdue community, and we wish him the very best as he starts this next chapter in his remarkable career,” says Mung Chiang, the John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering.
Pedro Irazoqui, Reilly Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering who has been the Associate Head in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, will serve as the interim Head of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering starting September 1. An ECE Head Search Committee has been appointed by Dean Chiang, and will be co-chaired by Sangtae Kim, the Jay and Cynthia Ihlenfeld Head and Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, and Bill Elmore (BSEE ‘75, MSEE ‘76), a co-founder and general partner of Foundation Capital and a board director of Purdue Research Foundation. “Purdue ECE is in an admirably strong shape today, and we know it will attract world-class candidates, both internal and external ones, in this search,” says Dean Chiang. “We thank the search committee for starting this critical task right away, and Pedro for serving in the interim role without being a candidate for the permanent position.” Suggestions of candidates for this national search can be sent to eceheadsearch@purdue.edu
More information: Leader of top-ranked Purdue programs to lead engineering school