Pramod Khargonekar

Pramod Khargonekar

Pramod Khargonekar received B. Tech. Degree in electrical engineering in 1977 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India, and M.S. degree in mathematics in 1980 and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1981 from the University of Florida, respectively. He has been on faculty at the University of Florida, University of Minnesota, The University of Michigan, and the University of California, Irvine. He was Chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from 1997 to 2001 and also held the position of Claude E. Shannon Professor of Engineering Science at The University of Michigan. From 2001 to 2009, he was Dean of the College of Engineering and Eckis Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida till 2016. He also served briefly as Deputy Director of Technology at ARPA-E, U. S. Department of Energy in 2012-13. He was appointed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to serve as Assistant Director for the Directorate of Engineering (ENG) in March 2013, a position he held till June 2016. In this position, Khargonekar led the ENG Directorate with an annual budget of more than $950 million. In addition, he served as a member of the NSF senior leadership and management team and participated in setting priorities and policies. In June 2016, he assumed his current position as Vice Chancellor for Research and Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine.

Khargonekar’s research and teaching interests are centered on theory and applications of systems and control. His early work was on mathematical control theory, specifically focusing on robust control analysis and design. During the 1990’s, he was involved in a major multidisciplinary project on applications of control and estimation techniques to semiconductor manufacturing. His current research and teaching interests include systems and control theory, machine learning, and applications to smart electric grid and manufacturing. He has been recognized as a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher. He is a recipient of the IEEE Control Systems Award, IEEE Control Systems Society Bode Lecture Prize, NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, the American Automatic Control Council’s Donald Eckman Award, the Japan Society for Promotion of Science fellowships, World Automation Congress Honor, the IEEE W. R. G. Baker Prize Award, the IEEE CSS George Axelby Best Paper Award, the Hugo Schuck ACC Best Paper Award, and the Distinguished Alumnus and Distinguished Service Awards from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He is a Fellow of IEEE, IFAC, and AAAS. At the University of Michigan, he received the and Claude Shannon Chair and Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship. In the past, he has served as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, SIAM Journal of Control, Systems and Control Letters, and International J. of Robust and Nonlinear Control, and is currently on the Editorial Board of the Proceedings of IEEE. He has served on numerous committees in IEEE, IFAC, and AAAS. He is currently a member of: the Governance Board of Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CESMII), Board of Directors of California Council on Science and Technology (CCST), External Advisory Board of Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland, Governing Board of CENIC, Advisory Board of NSF Engineering Research Visioning Alliance (ERVA), Scientific Advisory Board of NSF ERC on Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture, and co-chair of the Applied Research Working Group of the University of California Global Climate Leadership Council (GCLC).