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Purdue engineering dean to be named new provost at Illinois
Craig Chamberlain, News Editor
217-333-2894; cdchambe@illinois.edu
12/19/05
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CHAMPAIGN, Ill.
— Linda P.B. Katehi, the John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering
at Purdue University, will be named provost
and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign.
Pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees at
its Jan. 19 meeting in Chicago, Katehi (kuh-TAY-hee) will begin her
duties at Illinois on April 1.
U. of I. Chancellor Richard Herman said Katehi is a perfect choice for
Illinois.
“She is engaging, quick and has experience with strategic planning.
She has accomplished much in her time at Purdue and has a great deal
of support there, as well as from those in the national community. We
are enormously excited that she will be joining us in a leadership role.”
Katehi, a native of Greece, earned a degree in mechanical and electrical
engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in 1977.
She came to the U.S. in 1979 to study at the University of California
at Los Angeles, and earned master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical
engineering there in 1981 and 1984.
Katehi began her academic career in 1984 as a professor of electrical
engineering at the University of Michigan, where she stayed for 18 years.
Starting in 1994, she served in a succession of administrative roles
in the College of Engineering, culminating with the position of associate
dean for academic affairs from September 1999 through 2001.
In January 2002, she became the engineering dean at Purdue.
Katehi said she was attracted to the position at Illinois because of
the university’s reputation and the opportunity to work with a
new president and chancellor who are plotting the campus’s future
course. “It is very exciting for me to become a member of this
team and I look forward to participating in a very exciting future,”
she said.
From her experience as a dean, which included work on a strategic plan
and a capital campaign, Katehi said she learned that teamwork was “absolutely
critical in moving an institution forward” and in encouraging
new initiatives. “What I’ve learned is that a lot of great
things can be accomplished when the disciplines work together,”
she said.
Katehi said she hoped to foster an environment that encourages interdisciplinary
research, innovation in the education of students, and diversity in
a broad sense (intellectual, racial, cultural, gender, etc). “I’ve
always felt that diversity is an attribute of quality, and the lack
of it in a number of disciplines, at the end of the day, really harms
the ability of those disciplines to achieve the quality they aspire
to,” she said.
As provost, Katehi will be the chief academic and budget officer for
the campus. In dealing with constrained budgets and competing demands,
she stressed the need to stay focused, to set priorities “that
we follow clearly and consistently,” and then to invest in the
future.
Katehi’s honors include a Presidential Young Investigator Award
from the National Science Foundation and a Humboldt Research Award.
In 1995, she was named a fellow in the Institute of Electrical and Electronic
Engineers (IEEE), and in 2002 received the Distinguished Educator Award
from the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society.
Katehi also has received five best paper awards, including the Marconi
Premium Prize in 2001 from the Institute of Electronic Engineers. She
holds or has applied for 19 U.S. patents and has graduated 37 doctoral
students. In 2004, she received the Leading Light Award for Women in
High Tech from the state of Indiana.
