Dear Clark School Friends,

This spring, I have taken great satisfaction in witnessing several of our most significant new programs take important first steps: the Fischell Department of Bioengineering, the Keystone Academy and the Maryland NanoCenter.

I’m eager to share these with you—just as soon as we celebrate reaching a milestone we have pursued for many years.


Entering the Ranks of the Top 10 Public Engineering Schools
In the U.S. News & World Report’s annual survey of engineering school leaders and corporate recruiters, the Clark School’s graduate programs ranked 9th in the nation among those offered by public engineering schools and 15th among those offered by all engineering schools. The new ranking puts us in the company of institutions we have long considered to be our peers and increases the likelihood that the best prospective students will look more closely at our programs.

Staffing Up the New Fischell Department of Bioengineering
The new Fischell Department of Bioengineering has developed—and will offer this fall—its new bioengineering undergraduate curriculum, together with the existing graduate bioengineering program. Professor William Bentley (pictured) will chair the new department. Faculty members include Dr. Bentley, Assistant Professor Helim Aranda-Espinoza, Associate Professor John Fisher, Assistant Professor Adam Hsieh, Professor Peter Kofinas, Professor Art Johnson, Associate Professor Hubert Montas, Professor Yang Tao, Professor Adel Shirmohammadi, Associate Professor Keith Herold and Professor Timothy Barbari. Assistant Professor Sameer Shah will join the department from the University of California, San Diego. His research interests are in neuro-muscular bioengineering at the molecular, single-cell and organ levels.

Launching—and Funding—the New Keystone Academy
The Clark School’s newest program, called Keystone: The Clark School Academy of Distinguished Professors, enables some of the very best Clark School faculty members to teach our most fundamental engineering classes, and thereby enhance the undergraduate student experience and increase student retention and graduation rates. William Fourney, chair and professor of aerospace engineering, is the lead Keystone Professor and is joined by Peter Kofinas, bioengineering; Bruce Jacob and Wesley Lawson, electrical and computer engineering; Kenneth Kiger, mechanical engineering; and Guangming Zhang, mechanical engineering and the Institute for Systems Research. It’s a wonderful program and should prove to be a model for all engineering schools. It immediately inspired a gift from Lockheed Martin Information Technology, whose president and CEO, Linda Gooden (pictured with the dean), a Clark School Board of Visitors member, personally presented a check to the Clark School earlier this year. This was followed by gifts from two more Board of Visitors members—Charles E. Waggner and Angel P. Bezos. These gifts put us on track to obtain our targeted annual support for this program.

Drawing a Crowd for the First Annual NanoDay (and Capturing New Nano Funding from the State of Maryland)
On May 12, some 300 academic, corporate and government leaders converged on the campus to attend NanoDay, a showcase for the university's strengths in nanotechnology and nano-biotechnology. The event, featuring presentations, poster sessions and Kim Building lab tours, was sponsored by the Maryland NanoCenter, which is the new name for what had been called the Maryland Center for Integrated Nano Science and Engineering, or M-CINSE. The large attendance indicates that the NanoCenter is now recognized as a leader in the field. That recognition is strengthened even further by a new $3.65 million equipment grant awarded by the state of Maryland, through the Department of Business and Economic Development, to purchase new nano fabrication technologies for the “FabLab” clean room in the Kim Engineering Building.

I know you share my excitement in seeing these new programs come of age. I believe they will each play a part in the Clark School’s continuing ascent.

Best Regards,

Nariman Farvardin
Professor and Dean