Dean’s Office
Frederick Emmons Terman Dean
Jennifer Widom, a professor of computer science and of electrical engineering at Stanford University for more than two decades, became the Frederick Emmons Terman Dean of the School of Engineering in March 2017.
A distinguished researcher in data and information management, Widom with her group pioneered foundations and software systems for many nontraditional types and applications of data, including active databases, semi-structured data, data streams, uncertain data and data provenance. By placing all of her group’s prototype software in the public domain and providing technical advice to companies both big and small, she has influenced a wide swath of commercial data management and analysis tools over the years.
Widom is an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She received the ACM-W Athena Lecturer Award in 2015, the ACM SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovations Award in 2007 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000.
Her research long predates the term “big data” and the recognition that data collection and analysis are critical to many aspects of scholarship and society. The increasing relevance of her own research area makes Widom particularly attuned to ways in which scholars of engineering and computer science can partner with others in a wide variety of fields.
Widom is also an innovator in engineering education. She taught one of Stanford’s first massive open online courses (MOOCs) and spent her 2016-17 sabbatical traveling the world teaching computer science in developing countries. Most recently she served as senior associate dean in the School of Engineering, where she co-led a long-range planning effort with colleague Arun Majumdar to map the future trajectory of one of the world’s leading engineering schools.
Widom, the Fletcher Jones Professor in Computer Science and professor of electrical engineering, served as chair of the Department of Computer Science from 2009 to 2014 and senior associate dean for faculty and academic affairs in the School of Engineering from 2014 to 2016. She received her bachelor’s degree in music from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 1982, and her computer science doctorate from Cornell University in 1987. Before joining the Stanford faculty in 1993, Widom was a researcher at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose.
Widom took a year off in 2007 to travel the world with her family when her two children were young. Her husband, Professor Alex Aiken, is currently the chair of the Department of Computer Science at Stanford, having succeeded Widom in that role in 2014. In addition to her husband, two of Widom’s family members are prominent scholars: Her father, Harold Widom, is a professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of California, Santa Cruz; her uncle Benjamin Widom is a professor emeritus of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University.
Senior Associate Deans
Ken Goodson, Senior Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs
Department: Mechanical Engineering, (by courtesy) Materials Science and Engineering
Ken Goodson is the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs and holds the Davies Family Provostial Professorship. Previously, he was the Robert Bosch Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department. He specializes in thermal sciences and electronics cooling and has 45 PhD alumni, nearly half of whom are professors at schools including Stanford, UC Berkeley, and MIT. Goodson is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow with ASME, IEEE, AAAS, APS, and the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Honors include the ASME Kraus Medal and Heat Transfer Memorial Award, the AIChE Kern Award, the inaugural IEEE Richard Chu Award, and the SRC Technical Excellence and University Researcher Awards. Goodson has 35 patents and co-founded Cooligy, which developed cooling systems for Apple desktops. Goodson’s education at MIT includes the BS’89 and PhD’93 in mechanical engineering as well as the BS’89 in Music.
Thomas Kenny, Senior Associate Dean for Education and Student Affairs
Department: Mechanical Engineering
Thomas Kenny is the Richard W. Weiland Professor in Mechanical Engineering. In 1994 he joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering. His group is researching fundamental issues and applications of micromechanical structures. These devices are usually fabricated from silicon wafers using integrated circuit fabrication tools. Because this research field is multidisciplinary in nature, work in this group is characterized by strong collaborations with other departments, as well as with local industry. Kenny worked at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1989 to 1993, where his research focused on the development of electron-tunneling high-resolution microsensors. He is a member of Bio-X. Kenny is a founder of Cooligy, Inc., a microfluidics chip cooling components manufacturer, and serves on the Board of Directors of SiTime Corporation (2004 - Present). He received the BS degree in physics from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis and the MS and PhD in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a fellow of ASME.
Scott Calvert, Senior Associate Dean, Administration
Scott Calvert is responsible for school operations including finance, HR, IT, facilities and research administration. He held a similar position at Stanford in the office of the vice provost for undergraduate education prior to joining the engineering team. Before coming to Stanford, Scott was a Navy fighter pilot for 21 years after receiving a commission through the NROTC program at Duke University, where he earned a BSE in mechanical engineering. He made numerous deployments aboard aircraft carriers flying F-14s and F/A-18s, and between squadron assignments he attended U.S. Navy Test Pilot School on a cooperative program with the Naval Postgraduate School, where he earned an MSAE in aeronautical engineering. In addition, he has an MBA from Columbia University.
Chairs/Directors
Juan Alonso, Chair, Aeronautics and Astronautics
Department: Aeronautics and Astronautics
Juan J. Alonso is the Vance D. and Arlene C. Coffman Professor in the Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics at Stanford University. He is the founder and director of the Aerospace Design Laboratory where he and his students specialize in the development of high-fidelity computational design methodologies which enable the development of Aerospace Systems that decrease or eliminate impacts on the environment. He is the author of over 250 technical publications on the topics of computational aircrafts, spacecraft design, multi-disciplinary optimization, fundamental numerical methods, and high-performance parallel computing. During the period spanning August 2006 - October 2008, Prof. Alonso was the Director of the NASA Fundamental Aeronautics Program in Washington, D.C. where he was responsible for the entire portfolio of aerospace vehicles and vehicle technology research for the agency. He is an AIAA Fellow, and the recipient of awards such as the NASA ARMD Associate Administrator Award, and of the NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal. He has served in countless councils such as NASA and FAA’s Advisory Councils, the Secretary of Transportation’s Future of Aviation Advisory Council, the FAA Office of Environment & Energy REDAC, and the International Council for Clean Transportation’s advisory council. At Stanford, he has made an impact by leading the committee that establishes the curriculum and organization for the new undergraduate program in the Aeronautics & Astronautics department.
Markus Covert, Chair, Bioengineering
Department: Bioengineering and, by courtesy, of Chemical Systems Biology
Dr. Markus Covert is the Chair of the Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. He is currently a Professor of Bioengineering and, by courtesy, of Chemical Systems Biology. He received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University, followed by M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Bioengineering from UCSD. Dr. Covert then completed his postdoctoral studies at Caltech with Dr. David Baltimore. Leveraging his computational and experimental training, Dr. Covert’s research focuses on integrating cutting-edge computational modeling methods together with experimental techniques to better understand complex cellular behaviors. He is best known for constructing the first “whole-cell” computational model, which explicitly represents all of the known gene functions and molecules in Mycoplasma genitalium. This work was published in Cell, and was reported in The New York Times, BBC World News, Scientific American and hundreds of other media outlets worldwide. The model was also recently cited by Cell as one of the most exciting developments reported during the 40-year history of that journal. In addition, Dr. Covert’s lab has generated several new exciting experimental techniques to measure and analyze the behaviors of individual cells. Dr. Covert’s work has received several awards, including an NIH Pathway to Independence Award, NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation Distinguished Investigator Award.
Andy Spakowitz, Chair, Chemical Engineering
Department: Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering and (by courtesy) Applied Physics and Chemistry
Andy Spakowitz is the chair of Chemical Engineering. Spakowitz, a professor of Chemical Engineering, of Materials Science and Engineering, and by courtesy of Applied Physics and of Chemistry, is also a member of ICME and Bio-X, and an affiliate at the Precourt Institute for Energy. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, then received his master’s and PhD from Caltech before joining the Stanford faculty in 2006. His lab utilizes theoretical and computational techniques to study fundamental chemical and physical phenomena underlying a range of biological processes and soft-material applications.
Sarah Billington, Chair, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Department: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Sarah Billington is the chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Billington is also a senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment. The recipient of numerous awards, her past research focused on sustainable, durable composites for built infrastructure, and her current research focuses on the impact of building materials and design interventions on human wellbeing. Billington received her PhD at the University of Texas-Austin in 1997 and arrived at Stanford in 2003 after spending five years on the faculty at Cornell. From 2009-15, she served as associate chair of the department, and in 2012 she was named the Milligan Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education.
Mehran Sahami, Chair, Computer Science
Department: Computer Science
Mehran Sahami is Tencent Chair of the Computer Science Department and the James and Ellenor Chesebrough Professor in the School of Engineering. As a Professor (Teaching) in the Computer Science department, he is also a Bass Fellow in Undergraduate Education and previously served as the Associate Chair for Education in Computer Science. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he was a Senior Research Scientist at Google. His research interests include computer science education, artificial intelligence, and ethics. He served as co-chair of the ACM/IEEE-CS joint task force on Computer Science Curricula 2013, which created curricular guidelines for college programs in Computer Science at an international level. He has also served as chair of the ACM Education Board, an elected member of the ACM Council, and was appointed by California Governor Jerry Brown to the state's Computer Science Strategic Implementation Plan Advisory Panel.
Mark Horowitz, Chair, Electrical Engineering
Department: Electrical Engineering
Mark Horowitz is the Fortinet Founders Chair of Electrical Engineering and the Yahoo! Founders Professor in the School of Engineering. The recipient of numerous awards, he is also a member of the NAE and AAAS and a Fellow of the IEEE and ACM. His early research focused on designing high-performance digital systems by combining work in computer-aided design, circuit design, and system architecture, and he helped start Rambus Inc., a company designing high-bandwidth memory interface technology. His work at both Rambus and Stanford drove high-speed link designs for many decades. In the 2000s he started a collaboration with Marc Levoy in computational photography which led to light-field photography and microscopy. Horowitz's current research interests are quite broad, spanning the use of EE and CS analysis methods to problems in neuro and molecular biology to creating new agile design methodologies for analog and digital VLSI circuits. He remains interested in learning new things, and building interdisciplinary teams. He received his PhD from Stanford University in 1984.
Pamela Hinds, Chair, Management Science and Engineering
Department: Management Science and Engineering and Electrical Engineering
Pamela Hinds is chair of the department of Management Science and Engineering, professor of Management Science and Engineering and co-director of the Center on Work, Technology, and Organization. She studies the effect of technology on teams and collaboration. Hinds has conducted extensive research on the dynamics of cross-boundary work teams, particularly those spanning national borders. Hinds also has a body of research on human-robot interaction in the work environment and the dynamics of human-robot teams. She is a senior editor of Organization Science and is co-editor with Sara Kiesler of the book Distributed Work (MIT Press). Hinds received her PhD in organizational science and management from Carnegie Mellon University.
Alberto Salleo, Chair, Materials Science and Engineering
Department: Materials Science and Engineering
Alberto Salleo is Chair of the Materials Science and Engineering department, a professor of Materials Science and Engineering, an affiliate of Precourt Institute for Energy and a member of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. Salleo’s current research focuses on fundamental structural and electronic characterization of semiconducting polymers and nano-materials and their application in (bio)electronic and electrochemical devices such as sensors and artificial synapses. In 2016, Salleo was recognized with the Walter J. Gores Award, Stanford’s highest award for excellence in teaching.
Ellen Kuhl, Chair, Mechanical Engineering
Department: Mechanical Engineering
Ellen Kuhl is the Robert Bosch chair of the Mechanical Engineering department at Stanford. She received her PhD from the University of Stuttgart in 2000 and her Habilitation from the University of Kaiserslautern in 2004. Her area of expertise is living matter physics, the design of theoretical and computational models to predict the acute and chronic behavior of living structures. Kuhl is the current chair of the U.S. National Committee on Biomechanics and an executive member of the U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and of the American Institute for Mechanical and Biological Engineering.
Gianluca Iaccarino, Director, ICME
Department: Mechanical Engineering
Gianluca Iaccarino is director of the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering. He also is a Mechanical Engineering professor, Bio-X member and is an affiliate of the Precourt Institute for Energy and of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. He received his PhD in Computational Mechanics at the Polytechnic University of Bari, in Italy, and joined Stanford’s Mechanical Engineering faculty in 2007.