ECE FACULTY

Nariman Farvardin

Title: Provost, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Professor
Areas/Affiliations: ECE
E-mail: farvar@umd.edu
Phone: (301) 405-5656
Office: 1119 Main Administration Building

Website: http://www.provost.umd.edu/

Biography:

Nariman Farvardin became dean of the A. James Clark School of Engineering in 2000. He is also a professor of electrical and computer engineering and former chair of the university's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. As dean, Dr. Farvardin has promoted the development of innovative educational programs, especially in the areas of undergraduate research and technology entrepreneurship; reorganized infrastructure to improve service and productivity; and developed a strong public awareness effort to communicate the school's strengths and accomplishments to its many constituencies, resulting in increased partnerships with industry and strong philanthropic support.

During Dr. Farvardin's tenure, external research expenditures have increased from $70 million to over $107 million and the rankings for the school's graduate and undergraduate program have risen dramatically. The school has received a landmark $30 million endowment to fund scholarships; has constructed a state-of-the-art engineering building; has started a new graduate degree program in Bioengineering; and has launched, with the School of Public Policy, an innovative Master of Engineering and Public Policy program to produce engineers skilled in policy issues. He has been cited by the Honorable Aristides Melissaratos, Secretary of Business and Economic Development for the state of Maryland, as the "best engineering dean in the country."

A Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Dr. Farvardin is a widely respected researcher in communications and information theory. Among his honors, he has been awarded the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award; the George Corcoran Award for Outstanding Contributions to Electrical Engineering Education; and most recently, the Invention of the Year Award (Information Sciences), from the University of Maryland.

Dr. Farvardin earned all of his degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Research Interests:

* Information theory and coding
* Signal compression and applications to speech, image and video coding
* Multimedia wireless communications
* Multi access protocols for wireless networks
* Speech and speaker recognition

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