Four professors from UC San Diego have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the country’s most esteemed honorary societies and independent policy research centers. The new members will be inducted at a ceremony on October 7, 2017 in Cambridge, MA, and the inductees will include Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla, who also has joint faculty appointments in the Computer Science and Engineering as well as the Electrical and Computer Engineering departments.
in CSE and will be inducted in October into the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Khosla is the eighth chancellor of UC San Diego and an internationally renowned scholar with seminal contributions in embedded software, intelligent robot systems and design. Prior to joining UC San Diego in 2012, Khosla was the dean of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of IEEE.
His contributions include the CMU Direct Drive Arm II; the first Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm configuration direct drive manipulator; the CMU Reconfigurable Modular Manipulator System; real-time operating system Chimera; and the distributed and collaborating robot system Millibots.
As chancellor, Khosla initiated and led UC San Diego’s first-ever Strategic Plan, and he recently launched the public phase of The Campaign for UC San Diego – an ambitious and bold $2 billion endeavor – aimed at transforming the university. Khosla also has strengthened community relationships and partnerships, and expanded college access and affordability for underserved populations by creating the Chancellor’s Associates Scholarship program that allows for loan-free education for up to 800 students a year.
Khosla’s leadership in education and research has been recognized by several awards, among them: the ASEE George Westinghouse Award for Education, the W. Wallace McDowell award from IEEE Computer Society, and the ASME Computers in Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award.
Founded in 1780, the American Academy convenes some of the world’s most accomplished scholars, scientists, writers and artists, as well as civic, business and philanthropic leaders, to respond to society’s challenges and opportunities. Members of the American Academy's 2017 class include winners of the Pulitzer Prize and the Wolf Prize; MacArthur fellows; Fields medalists; Presidential Medal of Freedom and National Medal of Arts recipients; and winners of Academy, Grammy, Emmy and Tony awards.
In addition to Khosla, the academy elected three other UC San Diego professors to join its ranks in 2017: they include molecular biologist James Kadonaga, economist Valerie Ramey, and artist Faith Ringgold.
“It is an honor to welcome this new class of exceptional women and men as part of our distinguished membership,” said Don Randel, chair of the academy’s board of directors. “Their talents and expertise will enrich the life of the academy and strengthen our capacity to spread knowledge and understanding in service to the nation.”