Appointment of Dean of Engineering
Prof Kwang-Ting (Tim) Cheng (鄭光廷教授) has been appointed as Dean of Engineering with effect from 1 May 2016 concurrent with his professorial appointment as Chair Professor jointly in the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering and in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
Graduated from University of California at Berkeley in 1988 with a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), Prof Cheng is currently Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Prior to joining the ECE faculty at UC Santa Barbara in 1993, he spent five years at AT&T Bell Laboratories.
At UC Santa Barbara, Prof Cheng has taken up various important academic leadership roles, such as Founding Director of the Computer Engineering Programme from 1999 to 2002, Chair of Department of ECE from 2005 to 2008, Acting Associate Vice-Chancellor for Research in 2013 and currently Associate Vice-Chancellor for Research since 2014 where he helps oversee the research development, infrastructure, and compliance of UCSB’s research enterprise with over US$200 million extramural research funding.
A highly respected teacher-scholar and internationally leading researcher with excellent experience in fostering cross-disciplinary research collaboration, Prof Cheng is the leading authority in the field of VLSI testing and design verification, as well as an impactful contributor across a wide range of research areas including design automation of electronic and photonic systems, mobile computer vision, and learning-based multimedia computing. He currently serves as Director of the US Department of Defense MURI Center for 3D Hybrid Circuits which integrate CMOS and nano-memristors for future computing systems. He has published more than 400 technical papers, co-authored 5 books, held 12 US patents, and transferred several of his inventions into successful commercial products. He is a fellow of IEEE and his works are of high impact with due recognition from the field, including 11 best paper awards and 1 Distinguished Paper Citation in major conferences and journals. He was also recognized as the Top 10 Author in Fourth Decade Award and Design Automation Conference (DAC) Prolific Author Award at the 50th DAC 2013.
Prof Cheng has been very active in providing professional services to the IEEE and to the academic community at large. Having served as Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Design and Test of Computers, on the boards of IEEE Council of Electronic Design Automation’s Board of Governor and IEEE Computer Society’s Publication Board, and on various technology advisory or working groups including the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), Prof Cheng has been internationally recognized as an eminent member of the field.