By Tina Hilding, Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture
PULLMAN, Wash. – Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture has appointed two new school directors.
Partha Pande has accepted appointment as director of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Indranath Dutta has been appointed as director of the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering (MME).
A WSU faculty member since 2005, Pande is the Boeing Centennial Chair in Computer Engineering and has served as interim school director since last year. He conducts research in network on chip technology, which is becoming the state-of-the art communications method for multicore chips. He was part of a team of researchers that received a $1.2 million National Science Foundation grant to design tiny, wireless data centers that could dramatically reduce energy usage. His research group also led design of a wireless network on a computer chip.
Pande has authored or co-authored more than 100 papers in journals and conference proceedings, which have been cited more than 5,000 times. In 2009, he received a National Science Foundation Career award, and in 2013 he received the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture’s Outstanding Researcher Award.
He holds a doctoral degree in electrical and computer engineering from University of British Columbia, a master’s degree in computer science from National University of Singapore and a bachelor’s degree from University of Calcutta, India.
Dutta has been at WSU since 2008 serving in a variety of leadership positions, including as director of the Materials Science and Engineering program, associate dean of research, and as interim director of MME. Prior to joining WSU, he was a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School and held visiting positions at the Air Force Research Laboratory, the University of Oxford, Motorola, Intel, and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
He has published nearly 200 papers, holds four U.S. patents and has two pending patents. His research interests include multiphysics phenomena in materials science, near-interface effects in multicomponent materials, materials reliability in microelectronics and composites, and electrically activated manufacturing at nano to meso scales. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Army Research Office, Office of Naval Research, Missile Defense Agency, and various Air Force and Navy labs, as well as by industry. He has served as a consultant to multiple companies, and is a fellow of ASM International.
He holds a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, a master of science degree in Metallurgy & Materials Science from Case Western Reserve University, and a bachelor’s degree in technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
Contact:
- Tina Hilding, communications director, Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture, 509-335-5095, thilding@wsu.edu
