Andreas Cangellaris named head of ECE

On June 30, College of Engineering Dean Ilesanmi Adesida announced the selection of ECE ILLINOIS Professor Andreas C Cangellaris as department head for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Cangellaris, the M. E. Van Valkenburg Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been serving as interim head of the department since November 2008, and his appointment as head is pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

In a memo, Dean Ilesanmi Adesida said, “Professor Cangellaris is an outstanding scholar who has a strong vision for the department’s future and is dedicated to sustain the quality of the ECE Department, which has prospered tremendously over the past several years.”

“It is a great honor,” said Cangellaris about being named the head of ECE. “I consider it a very special privilege to be given the opportunity to serve such a stellar department in such a role. ECE at Illinois has distinguished itself over the years as a leader in engineering education and groundbreaking research. I look forward to working closely with the ECE faculty, our students, and our alumni to build on this tradition the brightest future for our department.”

Among his goals for the department is “to share our enthusiasm about the importance of education and engineering innovation with everyone,” said Cangellaris. “We have a responsibility to remind people that it is through innovation that we prosper and through education that we put our prosperity to good use.”

Cangellaris received his MS and PhD degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1983 and 1985, respectively. He joined the Illinois faculty in 1997. His expertise and research interests are the in the area of applied and computational electromagnetics with an emphasis on applications to methodologies and algorithms for computer-aided analysis and design of radio frequency/microwave components and systems; high-speed digital interconnects at the board, package, and chip level; and system-level electromagnetic compatibility.

An author of numerous journal and conference papers, Cangellaris is co-author of the book Multigrid Finite Element Methods for Electromagnetic Field Modeling. His scholarly recognitions include the Humboldt Research Award, the Best Paper Award at the 1999 IEEE Topical Meeting on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging, and the ECE Illinois Faculty Outstanding Teaching Award. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and currently serves as editor of the IEEE Press Series on Electromagnetic Wave Theory and as distinguished lecturer for the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society.