Nariman Farvardin became dean of the A. James Clark School of Engineering in August 2000. He is also a professor of electrical and computer engineering and former chair of the university's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. As dean, Dr. Farvardin has promoted the development of several innovative programs, including two successful undergraduate programs called Inventis and Keystone, as well as new initiatives in undergraduate research and technology entrepreneurship; reorganized infrastructure to improve service and productivity; and developed a strong public awareness drive to communicate the school's strengths and accomplishments to its many constituencies, resulting in increased partnerships with industry and strong philanthropic support. These efforts have enhanced the quality of education, research and outreach programs offered by the Clark School and improved the school's national standing.

During his tenure, external research expenditures have increased from $70 million to over $110 million. Philanthropic support has increased significantly and the school has received two landmark gifts: a $31 million gift to establish a department of bioengineering and a $30 million gift to establish a scholarship endowment—the largest gifts in the history of the School and University. In the same period, the School has constructed a state-of-the-art engineering building; built strong programs in nanotechnology that place the University of Maryland among the strongest in the nation in nanotechnology education and research; established a major new initiative in energy research; and launched, with the School of Public Policy, an innovative Master of Engineering and Public Policy program to produce engineers skilled in policy issues. He has been cited by the Honorable Aristides Melissaratos, Secretary of Business and Economic Development for the state of Maryland, as the "best engineering dean in the country."

His research interests include information theory and coding; multimedia signal compression and transmission; high-speed communication networks; and wireless networks. He has more than 150 technical papers in archival journals and conference proceedings. Dr. Farvardin was the Associate Editor for Quantization, Speech/Image Coding of the IEEE Transactions on Communications during 1986-90 and the Associate Editor for Source Coding of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory during 1992-95. He chaired the technical program committee of the IEEE Speech Coding Workshop, Annapolis, Md., 1995.

A Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Dr. Farvardin is a widely respected researcher in communications and information theory. Among his honors, he has been awarded the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award; the George Corcoran Award for Outstanding Contributions to Electrical Engineering Education; and the Invention of the Year Award (Information Sciences), from the University of Maryland. In January 2003, he was selected by The Washington Post as one of the "Five to Watch in 2003."

Dr. Farvardin was the co-founder and chairman of the board of Zagros Networks, a venture-funded fab-less semiconductor company in Rockville, Md., that develop technologies focusing on quality of service provisioning in packet-switched networks. He is currently a member of the board of directors and board of advisors of several private corporations and venture capital firms. He is also a member of several technical/advisory boards of educational and non-profit organizations.

Farvardin earned all of his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

E-mail: farvar@eng.umd.edu
Phone: +1 301-405-3683
Fax: +1 301-314-9281
Office: 2415 A.V. Williams
URL: www.ee.umd.edu/~farvar/