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Anantha P. Chandrakasan

American engineer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anantha P. Chandrakasan
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Anantha P. Chandrakasan is MIT's Provost and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He served as Dean of MIT's School of Engineering from July 2017 to June 2025 and as the Institute's inaugural Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer from January 2024 to June 2025.[1]

Quick facts 14th Provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Preceded by ...

Reporting to MIT's President, Chandrakasan is the Institute's chief academic and budget officer. As a senior officer of the Institute, he serves on the following boards and committees: Academic Council,[2] Building Committee(co-chair),[3] Enrollment Management Group,[4] Financial Scenarios Working Group (co-chair), Gift Acceptance Committee (chair),[5] Gift Policy Committee, Ragon Institute Board,[6] Schwarzman College of Computing External Advisory Council (ex officio),[7] and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Board (co-chair).[8]

In his role as provost, he also oversees the MIT Office of Innovation and Strategy (OIS) which includes the following initiatives: the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative (MIT HEALS), the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium (MGAIC), the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC), and the MIT Initiative for New Manufacturing (INM). He currently serves as head of MIT HEALS and MGAIC and co-chair of MITHIC. MIT OIS also includes the MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance for which he serves as co-chair.

Chandrakasan is also the Senior Executive Advisor to the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC) and serves as co-chair of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab and the Tata-MIT Alliance, both of which he founded.[9]

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Biography

Born in Chennai, India, Chandrakasan moved to the United States during high school. His mother, a biochemist, was a Fulbright Scholar.[10] Chandrakasan earned his bachelor's (1989), master's (1990), and doctoral (1994) degrees in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California, Berkeley.[11]

Career

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In 1994, Chandrakasan joined the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT. He was the Director of the MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories from 2006 to 2011, and head of the EECS department from 2011 to 2017. In his role as head of EECS, he launched programs such as a year-long independent research program called “SuperUROP” that supported students doing publication-quality research; an annual event the Rising Stars program that brought together graduate and postdoc women to share advice for advancing academic careers; and an independent activities period (IAP) class called StartMIT that introduces students to entrepreneurship and connects students and postdocs with industrial innovation leaders.

In 2017, he was appointed dean of MIT's School of Engineering.[12] As the Dean of Engineering, Chandrakasan has led or contributed to the creation of a number of initiatives including The Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (Jameel Clinic),[13] the MIT-IBM AI Watson Lab,[14] The MIT Quest for Intelligence, the MIT-Sensetime Alliance,[15] the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing,[16] the MIT-Takeda Program,[17] and the MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Industry and Technology.[18]

In 2016, Chandrakasan lead The Engine Working Groups to guide the development of Institute policies and procedures for engaging with The Engine.[19] The Engine, a new external innovation accelerator, was launched by MIT to help start-ups pursuing capital- and time-intensive technologies access patient capital, workspaces, equipment, and services needed to bring solutions from inception to the marketplace. Sixty-two members of the MIT community, including faculty, students, postdocs, and staff, participated in this effort.

As MIT's inaugural Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, Chandrakasan collaborates with key stakeholders across MIT, as well as external partners, to launch initiatives and new collaborations in support of the Institute’s strategic priorities.To date, he has overseen the development and launch of four significant cross-Institute initiatives as part of MIT’s presidential priorities, including, MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC),[20] the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative (MIT HEALS),[21] the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium (MGAIC),[22] and the MIT Initiative for New Manufacturing (INM)[23] as well as the MIT GE-Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance.[24] He has oversight of these initiatives.

His research focuses on the energy efficiency of electronic circuits. Early on in his research career, he worked on low-power chips for portable computers, which helped lead to the development of technology in small, energy-constrained devices like smartphones.[25] His paper titled “Low-power CMOS digital design”[26] published in the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (April 1992) is recognized as one of the most cited papers in the journal.[27]

Chandrakasan leads the MIT Energy-Efficient Circuits and Systems Group, which works on a variety of projects such as ultra-low power biomedical devices, energy-efficient processors, wireless authentication tags. The group also works on projects that involving circuit design, wireless charging, security hardware, and energy harvesting in Internet of Things devices.[28]

He is a co-author of Low Power Digital CMOS Design (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995), Digital Integrated Circuits (Pearson Prentice-Hall, 2003, 2nd edition), and Sub-threshold Design for Ultra-Low Power Systems (Springer 2006).

Chandrakasan was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering (2015) for the development of low-power circuit and system design methods.

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Professional service

Chandrakasan has been involved with the IEEE International Solid-state Circuits for a quarter-century since 1996 including the following leadership roles:[29]

  • Chair, ISSCC Signal Processing Subcommittee, 1999–2001
  • Vice Chair, ISSCC Program, 2002
  • Chair, ISSCC Program, 2003
  • Chair, ISSCC Technology-Directions Subcommittee, 2004–2009
  • Vice-Chair, ISSCC Conference, 2009
  • Chair, ISSCC Student Forum Committee (now called the Student Research Preview Committee), 2009
  • Chair, ISSCC Conference, 2010–2018
  • Senior Technical Advisor, 2019-2023
  • Plenary Selection Chair, 2024
  • Steering Committee Chair, 2025-current

He has been recognized as having the highest number of publications in the history of the conference.

Board affiliations

  • Member, Board of The Engine, 2016–2021
  • Member, Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Governing Board, 2017–2025
  • Member, Board of Trustees of the Perkins School for the Blind, 2018–2022
  • Member, Board of Analog Devices, Inc., 2019–2024
  • Co-chair, SMART Governing Board, 2025–present[30]
  • Member, Board of Natcast, 2024-present[31]
  • Member, Ragon Institute Board, 2025–present

Personal life

Chandrakasan currently lives in Belmont, Massachusetts, with his wife and three children, the oldest of whom graduated from MIT in 2017.[32]

Honors and awards

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References

External links

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