Newswise — The University of Maryland today announced the appointment of Dr. Darryll J. Pines as Dean of the A. James Clark School of Engineering and the Nariman Farvardin Professor of Engineering, effective January 5, 2009.
"President Mote and I are excited that Darryll has taken on this new challenge at the University of Maryland," said Nariman Farvardin, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost. "We are very confident that under his leadership, the Clark School of Engineering will continue its rapid ascent to be among the very best in the United States."
Professor Pines earned a Ph.D. in 1992 and an M.S. in 1988 in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1986, he received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. He came to the University of Maryland in 1995 as an assistant professor in the Clark School and has served as Chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering since 2006. Under his leadership, the department was recently ranked 8th overall among U.S. universities (up from 11th last year), and 5th among publics in the U.S. News and World Report graduate school rankings.
In addition, during his tenure as chair, the department has ranked in the top five in Aviation Week and Space Technology's workforce undergraduate and graduate student placement study. Pines has been Director of the Sloan Scholars Program since 1996 and Director of the GEM Program since 1999, and he also served as Chair of the Engineering Council, Director of the NASA CUIP Program, and Director of the SAMPEX flight experiment. Last year, he served on the university's Strategic Planning Steering Committee.
During a leave of absence from the University (2003-2006), Pines served as Program Manager for the Tactical Technology Office and Defense Sciences Office of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). While at DARPA, Pines initiated five new programs primarily related to the development of aerospace technologies for which he received a Distinguished Service Medal. He also held positions at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Chevron Corporation, and Space Tethers Inc. At LLNL, Pines worked on the Clementine Spacecraft program, which discovered water near the south pole of the moon. A replica of the spacecraft now sits in the National Air and Space Museum.
Pines' current research focuses on structural dynamics, including structural health monitoring and prognosis, smart sensors, and adaptive, morphing and biologically-inspired structures as well as the guidance, navigation, and control of aerospace vehicles. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and an Associate Fellow of AIAA, and he has received an NSF Career Award.
"The Department of Aerospace Engineering has excellent faculty, exceptional staff and innovative students, and I have been humbled and honored to serve as its chair for these past couple of years. It has truly been an exciting and rewarding time period for me. But it is they who have made the department great," said Pines. " And now, building on the great work of my predecessors, I will continue to move the Clark School in the bold new direction toward engineering excellence, solidly grounded in the foundations of discovery, invention and innovation."
Over the past few years, the Clark School's external research expenditures increased from $70 million to more than $110 million. Philanthropic support also increased significantly, including two landmark gifts: a $31 million gift to establish the Fischell Department of Bioengineering and a $30 million gift to establish the A. James Clark Scholarship Endowment. The Clark School also constructed a state-of-the-art engineering building; built strong programs in nanotechnology that are helping place the University of Maryland among the national leaders in nanotechnology education and research; established a major new initiative in energy research; and launched, with the School of Public Policy, an innovative Master of Engineering and Public Policy program to train engineers to be leaders in technology policy issues.
The Clark School's graduate programs collectively rank 17th in the nation, and its undergraduate programs 21st in the nation, according to the U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Graduate Schools 2009."
A high resolution photo of Dr. Pines is available at:
http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/images/Engineering/Pines/pineslarge.jpg
Photo is "Courtesy University of Maryland."
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