Prith Banerjee

Indian American Prith Banerjee, currently chairman of electrical and computer engineering at Northwestern University, will soon take over as dean of the college of engineering at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Banerjee, a native of India, previously directed the computational science and engineering program at University of Illinois’s Urbana-Champaign campus.

His new post will begin in August this year, according to a press release.

Banerjee, 43, received a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1987. He also founded AccelChip, a Schaumburg-based developer of products for electronic design automation.

He has authored about 300 publications and has supervised 30 Ph.D. students and 36 M.S. students. Banerjee is the recipient of the Frederick Terman Award, the Taylor L. Booth Education Award, the NSF Presidential Young Investigator award, the IBM Young Faculty Development Award, and the President of India Gold Medal from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

Prith received his B.Tech. degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in August 1981, and the M.S. and Ph.D degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in December 1982 and December 1984 .