College of Engineering and Applied Sciences Reports Rapid Growth

At left, Associate Professor Ozlem Uzuner moves to the Department of Computer Science.  At right, Daphne Jorgensen is moving to the Dean's office. (Photos by Mark Schmidt)

ALBANY, N.Y. (January 7, 2016) – UAlbany’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS) reports impressive progress in its goals to recruit world-class faculty, develop new course offerings, increase enrollment and lay the groundwork necessary to support its ambitious growth plan.

“We have reconfigured the College to create a foundation on which we can build a real college of engineering and applied sciences with strength at all levels -- B.S., M.S., Ph.D. -- and across a spectrum of disciplines,” said Interim Dean of Engineering and Applied Sciences Kim Boyer.

An ambitious growth plan has been laid out that encompasses five departments -- computer science, computer and electrical engineering, bioengineering, environmental engineering, and mechanical and systems engineering -- offering eight majors, and hosting more than 60 faculty, over 1600 students, and 30 or more new staff in five years, all without outspending tuition revenues, Boyer said.

Official approval for the bachelors in computer engineering is expected by the State Education Department in early February. Last fall, course offerings in computer engineering were full, in advance of the program’s final approval.

To maximize its resources, while offering all of the College’s computing programs in a “one-stop shop,” the computer science department will now house the B.S. program in informatics. That transition will occur throughout the spring semester.

Building Faculty and Staff Resources

The College is actively recruiting four tenure track faculty members at all levels in computer engineering and another three in computer science, as well as three lecturers in computer science.

Kim also announces personnel changes that include:

• Associate Professor Ozlem Uzuner, who has a bachelor’s, masters and doctorate from MIT, has moved from the departments of information studies and informatics to the department of computer science. Ozlem’s research interests are natural language processing and its applications to real-world problems, as well as medical informatics, electronic health records, and digital government.
• Daphne Jorgensen moves from information studies to the Dean’s office, where she will be assistant dean for online curricula, advising, and communications. Daphne will lend her expertise in marketing the College of Engineering’s new programs, handle external communications, and oversee the College’s ever-growing advising activities.

In other developments:

• CEAS has hired two new advisors, Michelle Mora and Todd Schnitzer, to provide professional advising services to an ever-growing undergraduate population.
• The College will soon hire a director of applied learning and cooperative education who will develop a co-op program and capstone design sequence, as well act as a liaison with industry, bringing in external resources and projects.
• The College is developing philanthropy in support of faculty and student diversity, community engagement and maker/tinker spaces where students and the community-at-large can build projects or prototypes of their own creation and undertake other unstructured experimental or entrepreneurial activities. Spaces will be developed for physical construction and assembly, machining, electronics, 3D printing, and more.
• CEAS continues to develop its next set of programs, including: an M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering; B.S. in bioengineering; B.S. in environmental engineering; and the B.S. in electrical engineering.
• President Jones has designated the College as the home of the new interdisciplinary Institute for Advanced Data Analytics; the institute director will have a senior faculty appointment in CEAS.

“Our vision for the College has been strongly endorsed by the President and the Provost, which is both extremely encouraging and extremely gratifying,” said Kim. “The benefits we will bring to the University, the transformation our efforts together will realize, will be pervasive and long-lasting. We are grateful for their support.”

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