BEN FRANKLIN TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS OF SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA
ELECTS DREXEL UNIVERSITY PROVOST AND SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT TO BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Dr. Stephen W. Director, who has a distinguished career in engineering, will serve until January 2008.
April 12, 2006 - PHILADELPHIA, PA – The Board of Directors for Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/SEP) -- an innovative economic development organization stimulating entrepreneurial potential in the region – has elected Stephen W. Director, Ph.D., Provost and Senior Vice President and Trustee Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University, to serve on the Board. His term expires in January 2008.
As Provost at Drexel, Dr. Director serves as the chief academic officer and has responsibilities that include overseeing the faculty and curriculum in the University’s eight colleges and three schools: College of Arts and Sciences, College of Information Science and Technology, LeBow College of Business, College of Engineering, College of Medicine, Goodwin College of Professional Studies, Pennoni Honors College, College of Nursing and Health Professions, College of Law, School of Education, School of Public Health and the School of Biomedical Engineering. Drexel is the 20th-largest private university in America and home to the nation’s largest private undergraduate engineering program and one of only two schools of public health in Pennsylvania.
““Ben Franklin Technology Partners is very pleased to have Dr. Director join the Board of Directors,” Board Chairman Martin S. Dorph said. “In his position of leadership at Drexel, he will ensure that the productive partnership between Drexel and BFTP/SEP will continue to strengthen.”
Dr. Director is a pioneer in the area of computer aided design, having co-developed the “adjoint network approach” for efficiently computing sensitivities, the simplicial approximation and boundary integral methods for yield optimization and the FABRICS IC fabrication process simulator. He has a long record of commitment to, and innovation in, engineering education including authoring pioneering textbooks and motivating and implementing new and innovative electrical and computer engineering curricula.
Prior to joining Drexel, Dr. Director was the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, a post he held since July 1996. From 1977 until 1996 he was at Carnegie Mellon University where he was the U. A. and Helen Whitaker University Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He served as head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 1982 to 1991 and then Dean of the College of Engineering until June of 1996. In 1982, he founded the SRC-CMU Research Center for Computer-Aided Design and served as its Director from 1982 to 1989.
Dr. Director was elected Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 1978, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 1989 and a Fellow of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) in 2004. He served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the ASEE’s Engineering Deans Council from June 1999 through June 2001 and, Chair of the NAE’s Committee on Engineering Education from 1999-2005. He also serves on numerous other boards and committees and is a consultant to industry, government and academia.
Dr. Director has published over 150 papers and authored or co-authored six texts. He has received numerous awards for his research and educational contributions. In 2000 he received the IEEE Millennium Medal and in 2002 he was named Honorary Professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University by the Chinese Ministry of Education. A native of Long Island, Dr. Director received his bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering, respectively, from the University of California at Berkeley.
About Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania
Since 1982, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/SEP) has helped grow the region through science, technology and entrepreneurship. Part of a statewide network in Pennsylvania, BFTP/SEP provides entrepreneurs and established businesses the capital, talent, and expertise they need to compete in the global marketplace. BFTP/SEP has provided more than $110 million to over 1,400 regional enterprises through various funding means. BFTP/SEP is a founding partner of the Mid-Atlantic Nanotechnology Alliance (MANA®). With Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania, BFTP/SEP is also a founding partner of the Nanotechnology Institute™ (NTI) and is funded by Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development.
Also, with Drexel, BFTP/SEP has supported a partnership to the Commonwealth with the Philadelphia College of Sciences, the University of Pennsylvania, and BioAdvance for a Keystone Innovation Zone (KIZ) initiative for technology and economic development. BFT/SEP also partnered with Drexel to provide a successful pre-proposal by the University’s BioMedical School of Engineering, Science and Health Systems to the Coulter Foundation.
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