 Among the many recent
accomplishments I am eager to report—concerning rankings, young faculty members, the formation of
major new initiatives, and outstanding alumni success stories—none is as significant as the nearly
three-decade impact of our Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech), led by founding director
and University of Maryland President’s Medal winner, Herbert Rabin, who is now stepping down.
I ask that you all join me in recognizing Dr. Rabin’s immense contributions in establishing and
developing what is now one of the nation’s pre-eminent academic entrepreneurship programs.
Success in a Growing
Array of Rankings
 The 2011 U.S. News & World Report survey ranked the Clark School's
undergraduate program 19th in the nation
among all engineering programs and 9th among public programs—the first time we have entered the Top 20
and Top 10 respectively. In three newer rankings, the Clark School likewise fared well: the Institute
of Higher Education and Center for World-Class Universities has ranked the Clark School
13th in the world among all
engineering programs for 2010, primarily for research productivity and academic scholarship;
the Wall Street Journal, in its first Top 25 Recruiter Picks listing, ranked us
3rd in the nation among engineering
programs from which large employers most heavily recruit graduates to fill entry-level jobs;
and our Fischell Department of Bioengineering’s graduate program was ranked
among the top 20 in the nation
by the National Research Council.
Prestigious Awards for Young
Faculty Members
 By the close of 2010 we learned that not only had Edo Waks (pictured),
assistant professor
in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Institute for Research in Electronics
and Applied Physics, won an NSF Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, but that
he was being joined by assistant professors John Cumings (Department of Materials Science and Engineering
[MSE]) and Joonil Seog (joint, MSE and Fischell Department of Bioengineering),
who had won NSF Faculty
Early Career Development Awards. With such stellar young researchers and educators on the faculty,
we can expect the Clark School to continue to contribute at the highest levels of engineering research
long into the future.
Joint Leadership of Important
Campus Initiatives
 The Clark School is taking a joint leadership role in a number of major new
University of Maryland programs. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the five-year,
$3.2 million ADVANCE Program for
Inclusive Excellence seeks to increase the representation of women faculty members in science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics fields at the university. The new
Cooperative Research and Development Agreement
between the university and the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command will build
on existing working relationships to strengthen the transforming missions and functions of Aberdeen
Proving Ground. The university is also launching the
Maryland Cybersecurity Center,
which will address cybersecurity education, research and technology development by bringing together
engineering, computer science, information science, business, public policy, social sciences and
economics.
Successes for Our Nationally Prominent
Entrepreneurs
 The Clark School’s history of producing nationally prominent technology business
leaders was underscored this year in the successes of three alumni.
Robert Briskman,
M.S. ’61, electrical engineering, co-founder of Sirius XM Radio, was inducted into the Clark
School’s Innovation Hall of Fame for creating the innovative technologies that enable efficient
satellite transmission of continuous radio programming to mobile and fixed receivers. Paice LLC,
an Mtech incubator company founded by
Alex Severinsky—a recent
Innovation Hall of Fame inductee for the development of the electric/gasoline hybrid engine used
in the Toyota Prius and other models—entered into a licensing agreement with Toyota after six
years of patent disputes.
Steve Dubin,
president of Mtech-incubated baby formula nutrient maker Martek, announced that the company
had accepted a nearly $1.1 billion offer from Royal DSM.
With 12 months remaining in the university’s
$1 billion Great Expectations campaign, I call
on all friends of the Clark School to target a Clark School program that is important to you and
make a gift appropriate to your situation. Please contact Leslie Borak, assistant dean for external
relations, for assistance. To date, we have raised $178 million, or 96 percent, of our $185 million goal. Our
thanks to Constellation Energy, who recently gave $50,000 to the UM Solar Decathlon team in the
form of an "Energy to Educate" grant, one of 10 such awards to schools around the country.
Darryll Pines
Dean and Farvardin Professor
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