MIT Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Professors Lozano-Pérez, Forney, and Wornell Awarded Professorships

September 9, 1996

To: EECS Faculty and Staff
From: Paul Penfield, Jr.
Date: September 9, 1996
Subject: Chairs

I am pleased to report three appointments of EECS faculty members to professorships. Tomás Lozano-Pérez has been appointed to the Cecil H. Green Professorship; Greg Wornell has received the Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Professorship; and Dave Forney has accepted a position as Bernard M. Gordon Adjunct Professor.

The senior Green chair has been used by the department to encourage senior faculty to examine what for them are new research areas, where they do not yet have the credentials to secure research funding. Tomás is using the opportunity to study the intersection of biology and computer science. Previous chairholders have included Peter Elias, Sam Mason, Dick Adler, Al Oppenheim, Fernando Corbató, Tom Lee, Al Drake, Albert Meyer, Rick Morgenthaler, Dave Staelin, Silvio Micali, and Nancy Lynch.

The junior Green chair was established to recognize and encourage excellence in teaching among junior faculty from all of MIT. Greg's teaching abilities and performance have been recognized in other ways -- last May he received the Junior Bose Award for excellence in teaching by junior faculty in the School of Engineering; while still a graduate student here, he received the department's F. C. Hennie teaching award in 1989, and the Institute's highest award for excellence in teaching by graduate students, the Goodwin Medal, in 1991.

The Gordon Chair was established in 1978 to encourage the appointment of faculty with extensive industrial experience. The most recent previous chairholder is Don Clausing, whose specialty of quality management has been of particular importance. It is not always easy to identify people with industrial experience who at the same time can convey the lessons from industry to our students, and also carry out research and supervise students at the doctoral level. Dave is such a person. He developed market-leading modems for Codex (now part of Motorola), and at the same time made major contributions to coding theory. His products always incorporated the most recent research results. He is widely regarded as one of the few people whose contributions span the entire communications field from theory to practice. We are very fortunate that he is joining the department faculty. As Adjunct Professor he will be able to retain his current position as Vice President at Motorola.