Roop Mahajan, who will become director of Virginia Tech’s Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS) on July 1, was named the James S. Tucker Professor of Engineering by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors during the board’s quarterly meeting June 12.

The professorship was established by the late James S. Tucker to recognize excellence in engineering research.

Mahajan comes to Virginia Tech from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he is the founding director of the Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Packaging for Microwave, Optical and Digital Electronics (CAMPmode). Since 1992, CAMPmode has functioned as an industry-consortium sponsored center. In 1995, the center became a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center. CAMPmode research is focused on nanotechnology and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS).

Mahajan is also the founder and co-director of MicroElectronic Devices in Cardiovascular Applications (MEDICA). This interdisciplinary center, which draws on faculty expertise from Colorado University’s Health Sciences Center and College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, fosters scientific advancement in the study and application of MEMS in cardiovascular applications.

At Virginia Tech, ICTAS leverages the university’s existing research strengths and encourages multidisciplinary research collaborations among faculty.

Mahajan, who holds the Roubos Chaired Professorship of Mechanical Engineering at Colorado, has received numerous awards, including the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) 2003 Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award for outstanding achievement in Mechanical Engineering. A Fellow of ASME, he also received the 2002 ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award, as well as the 2002 Subaru Educator of the Year Award. He holds three patents and has five invention disclosures.

Mahajan was employed by AT&T Bell Labs from 1979 until 1991 as a research leader and supervisor in thermal and computational engineering. He received the Bell Labs Fellow Award in 1989, an honor bestowed on only about one percent of the entire technical community of Bell Labs.

Mahajan received his Ph.D. from Cornell University and his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, India.

The College of Engineering at Virginia Tech is internationally recognized for its excellence in 14 engineering disciplines and computer science. The college's 5,500 undergraduates benefit from an innovative curriculum that provides a "hands-on, minds-on" approach to engineering education, complementing classroom instruction with two unique design-and-build facilities and a strong Cooperative Education Program. With more than 50 research centers and numerous laboratories, the college offers its 1,800 graduate students opportunities in advanced fields of study such as biomedical engineering, state-of-the-art microelectronics, and nanotechnology.

Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become among the largest universities in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech’s eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 180 academic degree programs.

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