Robertson to become dean of UW College of Engineering

Ian Robertson, Donald B. Willett professor of engineering at the University of Illinois and director of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Materials Research, has been selected as the new dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

“We are delighted to have an engineer of Professor Robertson’s stature and experience take on the leadership of the College of Engineering,” says UW–Madison Provost Paul M. DeLuca Jr. “His vision, scholarship and energy will ensure that a growing college achieves at a high level.”

Robertson has led the materials research division at the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the last two years, and headed Department of Material Science and Engineering at Illinois from 2003 to 2009. During that time, the department’s undergraduate and graduate programs continued to be recognized for their excellence.

Robertson, who earned a doctorate in metallurgy from the University of Oxford after undergraduate study at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, was impressed both by UW–Madison’s stature and the university’s commitment to engineering.

“It’s an honor to be chosen for such a prestigious position at one of the top land grant universities,” he says. “And the chancellor and provost have a vision of what they expect the College of Engineering to become in the next five to 10 years — not just keeping it running, but building it.

“If you think of the challenges that we face — energy, transportation, clean air and water, building the next generation of computing and communications technologies as we use up our raw materials — those are problems engineers must address,” he says. “Engineers are going to make a difference in the world. I’d like our students and faculty to take the leadership role in solving those problems in their classrooms and in their research.”

Established in 1889, the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering enrolls more than 4,000 undergraduate and 1,500 graduate students — and another 11,000 professional engineering education students — across nine degree-granting and professional development departments and a rich portfolio of research centers and partnerships with industry and other campus units. Robertson will assume leadership of the College of Engineering March 1, 2013.
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Excerpted from University of Wisconsin news release (Dec. 4, 2012).

If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-7716.