Pradeep Khosla reappointed Carnegie dean

Pradeep K Khosla, university professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was last week appointed dean of the Carnegie Institute of Technology for a second five-year term in recognition of his leadership in research and education initiatives both within the university and internationally.

The appointment of Khosla, the Philip and Marsha Dowd Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and founding director of Carnegie Mellon CyLab, began July 1.

Under Khosla, an Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur alumnus who did his MS and PhD from Carnegie Mellon, there has been a 25 per cent increase in the number of PhD students there, and an increase of more than 50 per cent in the number of graduate students who were women or underrepresented minorities.

The university, said Khosla, a faculty member since 1986, has invested 'enormous energy' in Carnegie Mellon and its engineering college since his being appointed dean in 2004.

'Pradeep Khosla has been an outstanding dean who has worked tirelessly to advance the college and its units. During the past five years the number and quality of undergraduate applications has risen to record highs,' said Mark S Kamlet, provost, Carnegie Mellon.

An internationally recognised authority on robotics, embedded systems, technology education, innovation and cyber security, Khosla has turned the CMC into a successful, competitive global enterprise.

The CIT was recently ranked sixth in the nation for graduate programs and three of the college's departments were ranked in the top ten by the US News & World Report.

Khosla was instrumental in developing a novel fellowship program that pays for the tuition of first-year PhD students and has reduced the cost for PhD students by 20 percent.

He also spearheaded the initiative that brought $29 million into renovating and creating state-of-the-art labs in the chemical engineering department. He was recently selected to join the new effort by the Council on Competitiveness to improve America's leadership in innovative technology.

He has also joined an elite group of academic researchers and business leaders tapped to serve for the next three years on the Technology Leadership Strategy Initiative, a collaborative effort designed to chart the most promising frontiers of technology and competitive advantage arenas for the US.

The council estimates that technology jobs are growing five times faster than other jobs worldwide, and 90 percent of the fastest-growing jobs in America require post-secondary education.

Before joining Carnegie Mellon, Khosla worked with Tata Consulting Engineers, and with Siemens. An author of three books, he is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and has received numerous awards and fellowships, and serves on boards of companies, nonprofits and venture capital firms.