MIT Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Barbara Liskov and Al Oppenheim Named Ford Professors

September 18, 1996

To: EECS Faculty
From: Paul Penfield, Jr.
Date: September 18, 1996
Subject: Barbara Liskov and Al Oppenheim Named Ford Professors

I am pleased to report that Professors Barbara H. Liskov and Alan V. Oppenheim have been appointed Ford Professors of Engineering, effective October 1, 1996. Current Ford Professors Al Drake and Fernando Corbató have decided to retire from the faculty as of that date.

Barbara is widely recognized for her contributions toward the methodology of data abstractions. Her language, CLU, has been used for years in 6.170, the required laboratory for our program 6-3; it tastefully combines automatic memory management with the ideas of data abstraction, iterators, exception handling, and parameterized types. Barbara is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of ACM, and recently received the Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award. She has an outstanding record of service to the department and the Institute, having served on many search committees, including those for MIT President, EECS Department Head, and new faculty.

Al is an expert in digital signal processing. In fact, it is not too much of a stretch to say that he is the father of the entire field, most of whose current leaders are his students or students of his students. His excellence in education was recognized most recently when he won the 1996 Bose teaching award; in earlier years he won the MIT Graduate Student Council Teaching Award, the MIT Baker Award, and the IEEE Education Medal. Al is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of IEEE. His extremely popular and highly praised course, 6.341, has been copied at many other universities. Al's service for MIT includes the EECS Personnel Committee and EE search committees.

The Ford chairs were established by a gift made in 1959 by the Ford Foundation, to recognize outstanding senior faculty for intellectual accomplishment, innovation, and leadership. The first five appointments, made in 1962, included Bob Fano and Dave White of our Department. Other Ford Professors of Engineering from our department include Professor Arthur B. Baggeroer and, in former years, William M. Siebert and H. Kent Bowen.