Fredric G. and Elizabeth H. Nearing Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Professorship: Fredric G. and Elizabeth H. Nearing Endowed Professor of
Electrical and Computer Engineering

Thanks to a generous gift from Fred Nearing (BSEE '43) and his wife, Betty, the ECE Department will use the Fredric G. and Elizabeth H. Nearing Professorship to recruit and retain quality faculty.

After graduating in 1943, Nearing worked for Western Electric writing technical data on radar systems including the radar bombing system in B-29 aircraft. After the war, he worked for a couple companies doing lab design, then found his niche in technical sales. "I'm a practical engineer, not a technical one," Nearing said. Before retiring, Nearing spent most of his sales career with Hewlett-Packard and Electronic Instrument Associates.

Yuliy Baryshnikov

Yuliy Baryshnikov graduated as an applied mathematician from the Institute of Railroad Engineering in Moscow, then worked until 1990 at the Institute for Control Sciences, where he also defended his PhD on problems in geometric probability in 1987.

He spent the next decade in Europe: in Germany (as Alexander von Humboldt research fellow, then as a
Habilitandedstipendiat of the German Research Foundation), then at Eurandom in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and, finally, as a professor at the Math department University of Versailles.

In 2001, Yuliy Baryshnikov joined the Mathematical Center at Bell Labs (then Lucent Technologies), first as a member of technical staff and later as a department head.

He has been with the U of I since 2011, as a Professor of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering, evenly split between both departments.

His distinctions include the Lady Davidson Professorship at Technion, and Simons Fellowships. He was visiting for an extended period at Columbia University, IHES, Technion, University of Pennsylvania and University of Bremen.