The new chair of the Viterbi School Department of Computer Science will be Shang-Hua Teng, Dean Yannis C. Yortsos has announced.

The Dean also announced a new chairs for the Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering/Electrophysics and the Department of Aersopace and Mechanical Engineering; and extensions of terms for the current chairs of Astani Department of Civil and Environmmental Engineering and Hsieh EE/Systems.

Teng  joins USC from Boston University. He received a M.S. degree in Computer Science from USC in 1988 and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1991. He was a Research Scientist at the IBM Almaden Research Center from 1997 through 1999 and in 2000 he became Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois.  In 2002 he moved to Boston University as Professor of Computer Science.

Gödel prize-winner Shang-Hua Teng

Teng has also held visiting appointments at Tsinghua University and Microsoft Research Asia. Shang-Hua has received many significant honors including an NSF Career Award in 1995, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship from 1996 to 1998, and most recently the 2008 Gödel Prize, awarded for the outstanding paper in Computer Science.
 
Teng succeeds Ellis Horowitz, who served as Interim Chair of Computer Science for the last year.

"Ellis did a wonderful job in guiding the department, advancing its mission and quality, and helping in the recruitment of the chair and new faculty," said Yortsos.  "I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Ellis for his service to the school in this capacity during the last year."

Eun Sok Kim, who came to USC in 1999, will be the new chair of the Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering Electrophysics, beginning a three-year term running through 2012. He is a world-renown expert in piezoelectric and acoustic MEMS, having
published 160 refereed papers and 8 issued patents in the field.

Eun-Sok Kim

Kim succeeds Professor Dan Dapkus, who served as chair for the last three years."Dan’s steady leadership and excellent judgment were instrumental in advancing the quality of all the endeavors of the department," said Yortsos. "It will be part of his lasting legacy that he was the Electrical Engineering-Electrophysics chair when the department was named in Fall 2006 as the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dan for his service to the school in this capacity during the last three years."

Yortsos also announced that Larry Redekopp, who has been on the USC faculty for 40 years, will take the chair of the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering for a limited term running until  December 2009. He succeeds Michael Kassner who served as the chair 6 consecutive years. "I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Kassner for his service to the school," said the dean.

Three chairs will continue past the scheduled end of their chairships. Michael Khoo of Biomedical Engineering and Alexander Sawchuk of Hsieh Department Systems will both stay an extra year, through August, 2010. Jean-Pierre Bardet will continue an extra semester, until December 2009.

 "In Fall 09 we will be visited by ABET to review the accreditation of our undergraduate engineering programs," said Yortsos. "This visit is very important for the school and all our undergraduate program degree offerings. To ensure continuity in the department leadership during the ABET visit, the faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering-Systems have agreed to my request to extend the terms of their current chairs.

"I am thankful to Michael, Sandy and Jean-Pierre for graciously accepting to continue leading their departments through the semester of the accreditation visit."