Title: New Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering Appointed
Date: October 6, 2011
Dr. Shekhar Bhansali, Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of South Florida, has been appointed as the Alcatel-Lucent Professor and the Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Dr. Bhansali comes to us with wealth of experience in building bridges between academia, industry and the foundations to advance graduate education amongst minorities.” said Amir Mirmiran, Dean of the College of Engineering and Computing.
A prolific researcher, Dr. Bhansali has 11 U.S. Patents, edited two (2) books and five (5) book chapters, and published over 70 journal papers and 100 conference papers. His research in the areas of bioengineering, oceanographic sensing, materials science, and alternative energy has received support from NSF, industry (SRI, Draper, and JCG), and national laboratories (Sandia and Los Alamos). He has also received a number of honors and recognitions on his research papers. During his tenure at USF, he has conceptualized and led a number of inter-connected interdisciplinary graduate student research and training programs, including NSF-IGERT, NSF Bridge to Doctorate and Alfred P. Sloan Doctoral Fellowship Programs to increase diversity, retention and graduation rates. Through these programs, he oversaw the education of over 150 graduate students with multiyear fellowships in colleges of Engineering, Arts and Sciences, and Medicine. A direct outcome of these programs was that USF moved into the top 10 PhD degree producers for African Americans and Hispanics.
Dr. Bhansali has received numerous awards including the 2009 William R. Jones Outstanding Mentor Award from the Florida Education Fund, 2009 Mentor of the Year Award from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, 2004 Outstanding Mentor Award from the McKnight Foundation, and 2003 NSF CAREER award. Dr. Bhansali is on the editorial boards of Recent Patents in Nanotechnology, and Technology and Innovation. He received his doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, his masters in Aircraft Production Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Chennai, India, and his bachelor’s degree with Honors in Metallurgical Engineering from the Malaviya National Institute of Technology in Jaipur, India.