New MEMS Associate Dean Appointments

Professors Heng Ban and Anne Robertson were recently appointed to serve as Associate Deans in the Swanson School of Engineering. 

Dr. Ban will serve as the newly created Associate Dean of Strategic Initiatives, for which his duties will involve fostering collaboration between SSOE and industry and national labs. This is a vital task that assists SSOE and the University of Pittsburgh in remaining a leader in academia and a top-tier institution.  He takes on this role in addition to being the Interim Director for the Center for Energy and also the Director of the Stephen R. Tritch Nuclear Engineering Program. He is also leading a $5M DOE project on transient fuel performance partnering with several universities and major fuel vendors. 

Dr. Robertson will be the inaugural Associate Dean of Faculty Development, a role that complements her efforts in the Center for Faculty Excellence, which she established and directs. The Center aids in the development of junior faculty within the SSOE. This had assisted the promotions of numerous junior faculty and is a strong selling point for attracting new faculty hires. Her new role allows her to expand her focus to include Associate Professors and Appointment Stream faculty.  The Center has already seen much success via team faculty mentoring, peer-to-peer mentoring and professional-development workshops. Each junior faculty participating in the mentorship program is assigned a 4-5 senior faculty mentoring team. To date, there have been over 135 mentoring meetings with approximately 90 mentors drawn from across the SSOE, School of Medicine, Dieter School of Arts and Sciences and a number of departments at Carnegie Mellon University.  So far, 19 junior faculty have completed the mentorship program and all have been awarded tenure.  Another 26 faculty are currently in the program. This is 100% participation in a completely voluntary program.  

Professors Ban and Robertson join two other Associate Deans from the MEMS Department, Professors Minking Chyu and Sylvanus Wosu who are the Associate Deans of International Initiatives and Diversity, respectively.