CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Debasish (Deba) Dutta joined the University of Illinois Urbana campus as dean of the Graduate College and associate provost, effective Jan. 16. (His name is pronounced duh-BAH-sheesh (DEB-uh) DUT-uh.)
Deba Dutta is the dean of the Graduate College and associate provost.
Dutta also holds an appointment as the Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Professor in the department of mechanical science and engineering.
A Scholar-in-Residence at the National Academy of Engineering, Dutta leads a national study on the lifelong learning needs of working professionals in engineering and science fields. At the National Science Foundation, Dutta served as the acting director of the Division of Graduate Education, and as the director of the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program, among other administrative positions. Dutta played a key role in the development of NSF’s Cyberinfrastructure Strategy (Vision of 21st Century Discovery), chairing its learning and workforce development subcommittee.
Dutta’s research – which spans solid modeling, global product development and lifecycle management – has been funded by the NSF, the Office of Naval Research, Lockheed Martin and other agencies. His work has been recognized with several awards, including the ASME Design Automation award and the NSF Director’s Award for Collaborative Excellence.
“Deba Dutta’s deep understanding of the interrelations of education and research in the lives of graduate students, and of how important it is to integrate the research component into the larger educational context, make him the ideal person to assume leadership of the Graduate College,” Provost Linda Katehi wrote in an e-mail message to the campus community announcing Dutta’s appointment. Katehi also is the vice chancellor for academic affairs.
Dutta, whose appointment was approved by the U. of I. Board of Trustees in July, succeeds Richard P. Wheeler, who served as dean of the Graduate College since 2000, and who continues to serve as vice provost in the Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and as a professor of English in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Dutta earned a doctorate in industrial engineering from Purdue University in 1989, when he joined the faculty at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Through 2008, Dutta held various appointments at Michigan, including professor in the department of mechanical engineering, director of the Product Lifecycle Management Alliance and founding director of the Globalization Technology and Culture Initiative.
A member of the editorial boards of five journals, Dutta is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society for Engineering Education and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Dutta chaired the ASME Design Automation Conference (1997), two Association for Computing Machinery Solid Modeling Symposia (1999 and 2001) and co-founded the International Product Lifecycle Management Conference Series.
Dutta was the William Mong Scholar at the University of Hong Kong and a guest professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.
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