Dr. Pramod P. Khargonekar was appointed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to serve as Assistant Director for the Directorate of Engineering (ENG) in March 2013. In this position, Khargonekar leads the ENG Directorate with an annual budget of more than $890 million. The ENG Directorate invests in frontier engineering research and education, cultivates an innovation ecosystem, and develops the next-generation of engineers.
Khargonekar was Chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from 1997 to 2001 and also held the position of Claude E. Shannon Professor of Engineering Science at The University of Michigan. From 2001 to 2009, he was Dean of the College of Engineering and is currently Eckis Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering there. He also served briefly as Deputy Director of Technology at ARPA-E, U. S. Department of Energy in 2012-13.
Khargonekar’s current interests include systems and control theory, machine learning, and applications to smart electric grid and neural engineering. He has authored more than 300 journal and conference publications. He has been recognized as a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher. He is a recipient of the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, the American Automatic Control Council’s Donald Eckman Award, the Japan Society for Promotion of Science fellowships, the IEEE W. R. G. Baker Prize Award, the IEEE George Axelby Award, the American Automatic Control Council’s Hugo Schuck Award, and the Distinguished Alumnus and Distinguished Service Awards from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He is a Fellow of IEEE and IFAC. At the University of Michigan, he received the Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship.