Andreas Cangellaris named interim head of ECE

College of Engineering Dean Ilesanmi Adesida recently announced the selection of ECE Illinois Professor Andreas C Cangellaris as interim department head for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Cangellaris's tenure as interim head begins on November 1 and is pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. He will succeed Richard E Blahut, who had been department head since 2001 and who is returning to the ECE Illinois faculty.

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 under Dick Blahut's dedicated leadership."

"This is a department that for any one of us, it would be an honor to serve," said Cangellaris, who is the M. E Van Valkenburg Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering. "Like all my colleagues, I'm convinced that there are very few places in the world where there is so much talent gathered together to contribute to new ideas."

Cangellaris noted that ECE Illinois is famous around the world for leadership in groundbreaking, transformational research and for its emphasis on comprehensive education on electrical and computer engineering. During his time as interim head, Cangellaris will work to continue fostering and extending these achievements. "This is my vision," he said, "to see the ECE Department sustain itself as an international leader in education and technology innovation."

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 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. He is the recipient of the Humboldt Research Award, the Best Paper Award at the 1999 IEEE Topical Meeting on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging, and an IBM Faculty Partnership Award. In 2001 he received the ECE 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 of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society.