Dean's Office
Persis Drell, Dean
Department: Materials Science and Engineering and Physics
Persis S. Drell is the Frederick Emmons Terman Dean of the Stanford School of Engineering, the James and Anna Marie Spilker Professor in the School of Engineering and a professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Physics at Stanford University. Dean Drell, who assumed her current post in September 2014, has been on the faculty at Stanford since 2002 and was director of the 1,600-employee U.S. Department of Energy SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory from 2007 to 2012. Her research interests are in technology development for free electron lasers and particle astrophysics. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a fellow of the American Physical Society. Dean Drell has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award. She received her bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics from Wellesley College and her doctorate in atomic physics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Senior Associate Deans
Jennifer Widom, Senior Associate Dean, Faculty and Academic Affairs
Department: Computer Science, Electrical Engineering
Jennifer Widom is the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs in the School of Engineering and the Fletcher Jones Professor in the departments of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. She was chair of the Computer Science Department from 2009 to 2014. She received her bachelor's degree from the Indiana University School of Music in 1982 and her Computer Science Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1987. She was a Research Staff Member at the IBM Almaden Research Center before joining the Stanford faculty in 1993. Her research interests span many aspects of nontraditional data management. She is an ACM Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences; she received the ACM SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovations Award in 2007 and was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2000.
Thomas Kenny, Senior Associate Dean, 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.
Bernd Girod, Senior Associate Dean at Large
Department: Electrical Engineering, Computer Science by courtesy
Bernd Girod, a professor of electrical engineering and (by courtesy) computer science, is Senior Associate Dean at Large and the Stanford Director of the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Stanford and Columbia. Girod is a key figure in the type of multimedia technology that has revolutionized online education and a pioneer of video streaming technology. His research has led to seminal contributions in video compression and communication, networked media systems and most recently, image and video search As an entrepreneur, Professor Girod has been involved in several startup ventures, among them Polycom, Vivo Software, 8x8 and RealNetworks. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a EURASIP Fellow and a member of the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina). Girod has authored or co-authored one major textbook, five monographs, and some 500 journal articles and conference papers. His current research interests are in the area of networked media systems.
Laura Breyfogle, Senior Associate Dean, External Relations
Laura Breyfogle is the Senior Associate Dean for External Relations for the School of Engineering. In this capacity, Breyfogle leads school-wide efforts in Development, Alumni Relations, and Marketing and Communications. Her 25-year career at Stanford also encompassed development positions in the Stanford Engineering School, the Stanford Business School and the Stanford Office of Development. Prior to Stanford, Breyfogle worked in development at the San Jose Symphony and the San Francisco Ballet. She earned her BS in English Literature from Carleton College and her MBA from the Anderson School at the University of California at Los Angeles. She currently is a board member for the Palo Alto Partners in Education (PiE) Advisory Council.
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
Charbel Farhat, Chair, Aeronautics and Astronautics
Department: Aeronautics and Astronautics, Mechanical Engineering
Charbel Farhat is the Vivian Church Hoff Professor of Aircraft Structures and Director of the Army High Performance Computing Research Center. His research interests are in computational sciences for the design and analysis of complex systems in aerospace, mechanical, and naval engineering. He is designated as an ISI Highly Cited Author by the ISI Web of Knowledge. He was knighted by the Prime Minister of France in the Order of Academic Palms and awarded the Medal of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques. He has received many other academic distinctions including the Lifetime Achievement Award from ASME, the Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials Award from AIAA, the John von Neumann Medal from USACM, the Gordon Bell Prize and Sidney Fernbach Award from IEEE, the IACM Award from IACM, and the Modeling and Simulation Award from DoD. He is a Fellow of AIAA, ASME, IACM, SIAM, and USACM.
Norbert Pelc, Chair, Bioengineering
Department: Bioengineering, Radiology, Electrical Engineering by courtesy
Norbert Pelc is chair of the Department of Bioengineering. His primary research interests are in the physics, engineering, and mathematics of diagnostic imaging and the development of applications of this imaging technology. His current work focuses on computed tomography, specifically in methods to improve the information content and image quality and to reduce the radiation dose from these examinations. He holds doctorate and master degrees in Medical Radiological Physics from Harvard University and a BS from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He served on the first National Advisory Council of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the NIH. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.
Stacey Bent, Chair, Chemical Engineering
Department: Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Electrical Engineering
Stacy Bent is Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering, the Jagdeep & Roshni Singh Professor of Engineering and Professor, by courtesy of Materials Science and Engineering, of Electrical Engineering and of Chemistry. She was a postdoctoral fellow at AT&T Bell Laboratories and assistant professor of chemistry at New York University before moving to Stanford University in 1998. The research in the Bent laboratory is focused on understanding and controlling surface and interfacial chemistry and applying this knowledge to a range of problems in semiconductor processing, micro- and nano-electronics, nanotechnology, and sustainable and renewable energy. Much of the research aims to develop a molecular-level understanding in these systems, and hence the group uses of a variety of molecular probes. Bent is a Senior Fellow in the Precourt Institute for Energy and the Director of the TomKat Center on Sustainable Energy. She received a BS in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley and a PhD in chemistry from Stanford.
Stephen Monismith, Chair, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Department: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Geological & Environmental Sciences by courtesy
Stephen Monismith is the Obayashi Professor in the School of Engineering and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His research in environmental and geophysical fluid dynamics is focused on the application of fluid mechanics principles to the analysis of flow processes operating in rivers, lakes, estuaries, and the oceans. Flows that involve physical-biological interactions are of particular interest to him.
Alex Aiken, Chair, Computer Science
Department: Computer Science
Alex Aiken is the Chair of the Computer Science department and the Alcatel-Lucent Professor in Communications and Networking. Aiken's research focuses on developing techniques for the construction of reliable and high performance software systems. His interests include static and dynamic methods of analyzing programs, often focusing on either improving performance or correctness. Most of his research combines a theoretical component (for example, proving the soundness of an analysis technique) and a practical component, which often involves the implementation and measurement of advanced programming tools. His research extends to the design of new programming languages and programming techniques that make it easier to write software that can be checked for errors. Aiken has published more than 150 scientific articles and presentations. He is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, a recipient of Phi Beta Kappa's Teaching Award and a former National Young Investigator.
Abbas El Gamal, Chair, Electrical Engineering
Department: Electrical Engineering
Abbas El Gamal is Hitachi America Professor in the School of Engineering and chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering. A pioneer in the areas of network information theory and field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) and a key figure in the development of CMOS image sensors, he has been on the electrical engineering faculty since 1981. His academic contributions have spanned information theory, wireless networks, integrated circuit design and design automation, and imaging devices and systems. In his primary field, network information theory, El Gamal studies the performance limits of communication and computing networks and develops algorithms and protocols to achieve these limits. He developed the standard academic course on network information theory and co-authored the field’s first textbook, Network Information Theory. A Fellow of the IEEE, El Gamal has received several honors and awards for his work, most recently the 2012 Claude E. Shannon Award—the highest award in information theory. He has also played key roles in several Silicon Valley companies.
Peter Glynn, Chair, Management Science and Engineering
Department: Management Science and Engineering, Electrical Engineering by courtesy
Peter W. Glynn is the chair of the Department of Management Science and Engineering and the Thomas Ford Professor of Engineering. He holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Previously he was deputy chair of Department of Management Science and Engineering and director of the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of INFORMS and of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, a co-winner of best publication awards from the INFORMS Simulation Society, and a co-winner of a best publication award from the INFORMS Applied Probability Society, and co-winner of the John von Neumann Theory Prize from INFORMS. His research interests lie in simulation, computational probability, queueing theory, statistical inference for stochastic processes, and stochastic modeling.
Paul McIntyre, Chair, Materials Science and Engineering
Department: Materials Science and Engineering
Paul McIntyre is Chair of the Materials Science and Engineering department, a professor of Materials Science and Engineering and a senior fellow of the Precourt Institute for Energy. McIntyre leads a team conducting basic research on nanostructured inorganic materials for applications in electronics and energy technologies. He is best known for his work on metal oxide/semiconductor interfaces, ultrathin metal oxide films, atomic layer deposition, semiconductor nanowires, and nanoscale materials for solar water splitting. McIntyre is an author of over 180 archival journal papers and inventor of eight U.S. patents, and he has given more than 100 invited presentations, plenary talks and tutorial lectures. He has received two IBM Faculty Awards, a Charles Lee Powell Foundation Faculty Scholarship and a Semiconductor Research Corporation Inventor Recognition Award. McIntyre was a Global Climate and Energy Project Distinguished Lecturer in 2010 and received the Woody White Award of the Materials Research Society in 2011.
Kenneth E. Goodson, Chair, Mechanical Engineering
Department: Mechanical Engineering
Ken Goodson chairs the Mechanical Engineering Department and holds the Davies Family Provostial Professorship. He specializes in heat transfer and energy conversion and has 40 PhD alumni, nearly half of whom are professors at schools including Stanford, UC Berkeley, and MIT. Goodson is a Fellow with ASME, IEEE, AAAS, and APS. Honors include the ASME Kraus Medal, the ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award, the IEEE Thermi Award, the AIChE Kern Award, the SRC Technical Excellence Award and, in 2015, named lectureships at MIT, the University of Illinois, and Purdue. Goodson 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.
Department: Department of Energy Resources Engineering, Mechanical Engineering by courtesy, Civil and Environmental Engineering by courtesy
Margot Gerritsen is director of the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering, an associate professor in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering and has a courtesy appointment in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Her main research interest is in the design and analysis of efficient numerical solution methods for partial differential equations that arise in fluid dynamics. Her PhD thesis work emphasized mathematical techniques. After her PhD work, her focus shifted to actual engineering applications.
