Roger Ehrich, professor of computer science in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has been conferred the "professor emeritus" title by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.

The title of emeritus may be conferred on retired professors and associate professors, administrative officers, librarians, and exceptional staff members who are specially recommended to the board of visitors by Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger. Nominated individuals who are approved by the board of visitors receive an emeritus certificate from the university.

A member of the Virginia Tech community since 1976, Ehrich was a pioneer in human-computer interaction research. He authored more than 60 publications, including the book, “Human-Computer Dialogue Design,” and made significant contributions to research on digital picture processing and image analysis.

He was instrumental in securing the department’s first time-shared computers, and implementing the university’s first interdepartmental computer network. He served as the director of the Computer Science Computational Laboratory, director of the Spatial Data Analysis Laboratory, director of the Institute of Information Technology at Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technologies, and acting director of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction.

Erich received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University.

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