Arun Somani
Arun Somani, Anson Marston Distinguished Professor and Philip and Virginia Sproul Professor of electrical and computer engineering, and associate dean for research, has been appointed interim dean of the College of Engineering, effective July 1.
He will serve for the two-week transition between dean Sarah Rajala's retirement on June 30 and incoming dean W. Samuel Easterling's arrival on July 15.
"While the time period of Arun's appointment may be short, I appreciate his willingness to step up and help prepare the Engineering college for the new academic year," said senior vice president and provost Jonathan Wickert.
Somani, who joined the Iowa State faculty in 1997, served as department chair of electrical and computer engineering 2003-10. He earned a bachelor's degree in electronics engineering from the Birla Institute of Science and Technology, Pilani, India; a master's in computer engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi; and master's and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
His career also included positions at the University of Washington and the Indian government's Department of Electronics, as well as consulting appointments with Boeing and NASA's Institute for Computational Science and Engineering.
