Douglas B. Williams willbecome the interim chair for the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)at the Georgia Institute of Technology, effective July 1. Dr. Williams willsucceed Gary S. May, who will become the next dean of the College ofEngineering next month, and he will hold this position until a new, permanentschool chair is named.

Dr. Williams joined GeorgiaTech in 1989 as an assistant professor in ECE, and for the past eight years, hehas served as the School’s associate chair for undergraduate affairs. Whileassociate chair, Dr. Williams has had numerous opportunities to represent ECE,both on campus and to external audiences. In the past year, he has served onGeorgia Tech’s Executive Board, chaired the International Plan Committee, andbeen Georgia Tech’s advocate to the University System of Georgia’s FacultyCouncil.

A long-time member of the Centerfor Signal and Image Processing, Dr. Williams is active within the IEEE SignalProcessing Society. Within that Society, he has been a member-at-large on theBoard of Governors, an area editor for the IEEESignal Processing Magazine, and a member of the technical committees forSignal Processing Theory & Methods and Signal Processing Education. Dr.Williams also represents IEEE as an ABET Program Evaluator for electricalengineering and computer engineering.

The search for a permanentECE school chair will begin in August, and the composition of the search committeewill be announced later this summer. Plans for temporarily filling Dr.Williams’ current role as ECE associate chair for undergraduate affairs areevolving and will be announced at a later date.

“I’d personally like tothank Doug for agreeing to take on this important responsibility, and I am veryconfident that he will lead the School very effectively until a permanentschool chair can be identified,” Dr. May said. “Please join me in lending yoursupport to him as he assumes the interim school chair role at the beginning ofnext month and throughout his tenure in this position.”