School of Information Sciences

Three faculty promoted to full professor

06/21/2017

Dean Ronald L. Larsen is pleased to announce that faculty members Marek Druzdzel, Daqing He, and Prashant Krishnamurthy have been promoted to the rank of full professor. Promotion to full professor recognizes the accomplishments and reputation of the faculty member in a recognized field of learning. Through outstanding records of teaching, research, and service, these recently-promoted faculty have contributed greatly to the information science field, the associated professions, and the prestige of both the school and the University of Pittsburgh.

“These individuals have had a tremendous impact on the School of Information Sciences and will continue to profoundly influence the growth and reputation of the School of Computing and Information,” explains Dean Larsen.  “In their individual fields, these faculty members have performed research that has significantly advanced the information science and telecommunications disciplines, in addition to attracting excellent students. They have created academic programs that have helped to prepare hundreds of students to find successful careers, many in higher education.  Their impact on Pitt, the school, and the academic community at large is incalculable.”

Marek Druzdzel joined the faculty in 1993 after earning his PhD in Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Druzdzel has become a noted scholar in the fields of decision making under uncertainty, decision-theoretic methods, intelligent systems, and design of user interfaces for decision support systems.  His research group, the Decision Systems Laboratory, conducts theoretical work, system building, and empirical studies to build computational modeling environments that will enhance decision making in strategic planning. Druzdzel teaches the graduate level courses in Decision Analysis and Decision Support Systems, Data Structures, Introduction to Doctoral Studies, and Research Design, among many others. In 2007, he was awarded the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award in recognition of his integration of research and teaching, as well as his many efforts to enrich students’ educational experiences by participating in research. He is a lead faculty member for the School’s Big Data specialization in the MSIS program and is affiliated with the Intelligent Systems Program here at Pitt.

Since joining the faculty in 2004, Daqing He has been a leader in the School’s efforts to build international relationships, multidisciplinary research and teaching programs, and a significant research program in technology and information seeking behaviors. His work on information retrieval, intelligent information exploration, collaborative information seeking, and scholarly collaborative behaviors and needs has resulted in an impressive record of publication and grant funding totaling over $1 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC)/Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE). Interestingly, his work crosses the traditional boundaries that separate IS and LIS, which has been critical in growing the school’s global reputation as an iSchool.  His multidisciplinary approach is also reflected in his teaching:  he has regularly offered courses on information storage and retrieval and information technology in both the MSIS and MLIS programs, advised doctoral students in both programs, and even created several academic offerings that spanned the two fields. He is an international collaborator on four national and regional research projects at Wuhan University and Nanjing University in China.

In 1999, Prashant Krishnamurthy joined the faculty and immediately began to work on building a research program and degree offerings on the design and implementation of wireless networks. He also was one of the co-founders of the school’s Laboratory for Education and Research in Security Assured Information Systems (LERSAIS), a national Center of Academic Excellence (CAE) in Information Assurance Education (IAC) and Research (IAR). LERSAIS educates professionals and academics who will be charged with protecting information infrastructure. Krishnamurthy’s research on position/location and security in wireless networks has expanded to consider avant-garde directions for radio spectrum policy and spectrum virtualization, efficient design of location-based social networks, the design of positioning schemes to support wayfinding, and approaches to multi-level information privacy. Over his time at Pitt, Krishnamurthy has developed new courses and programs of study for the school, particularly addressing the wireless and security curricula, which has attracted over $5 million in curriculum and education/scholarships grants (for which he served as PI or co-PI) from the National Science Foundation and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He teaches at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, offering introductory and advanced courses on wireless networks and cryptography. He has also served as the chair of the doctoral program in telecommunications, overseeing the program’s continual evaluation and evolution to best meet the needs of this constantly changing field.

Please join us in congratulating Marek, Daqing, and Prashant on this well-deserved honor!

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