Mark A. Davenport has been named as the graduate recruitment coordinator for the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), effective May 14.

This new position is responsible for aggressively recruiting top Ph.D. applicants, primarily from institutions in the U.S. and from a few select international universities and colleges. The goal is to improve the matriculation rate of top Ph.D. applicants by working closely with the ECE Graduate Affairs Office and the School’s Graduate Student Recruitment Committee.

Davenport joined ECE in 2012 as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor in 2017. Prior to his arrival, he spent 2010-2012 as an NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Statistics at Stanford University and as a visitor with the Laboratoire Jacques-Louis Lions at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie.

A Rice University alumnus, Davenport received his B.S.E.E., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in ECE in 2004, 2007, and 2010, respectively. His primary area of research concerns the fundamental role that low-dimensional models and optimization play in signal processing, statistical inference, and machine learning. He currently serves as an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing.

Since coming to Georgia Tech, Davenport has been highly involved in activities focused on both graduate and undergraduate education. He has been a member of the Institute Graduate Curriculum Committee since 2017, and he has been a member of the ECE Graduate Student Recruitment Committee since 2013. Davenport has also served as a faculty advisor for the Opportunity Research Scholars Program since 2015 and as a faculty associate for the Georgia Tech Grand Challenges Program since 2013. While at Rice, he was a graduate student mentor and a member of the Graduate Student Council in the ECE Department.

Davenport is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award, and a Sloan Research Fellowship. He has received numerous teaching awards, including the Georgia Tech Class of 1940 W. Roane Beard Outstanding Teacher Award (2017), the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL)/BP Teaching Award (2016), the Lockheed Dean’s Excellence in Teaching Award (2015), the LexisNexis Dean’s Excellence Award (2014), and the CETL Class of 1940 Teaching Effectiveness Award (2013).