The engineering and computer science department at California State University, Fullerton, is getting a new dean this week bent on developing closer ties between the school and local industry.
Raman Unnikrishnan,a 56-year-old native of Cochin, India,last week was finishing up as chairman and professor of engineering at New York’s private Rochester Institute of Technology, a post he had held since 1991.
Unnikrishnan said he already has been to Orange County several times, but he still has to a lot to learn about Cal State Fullerton’s role in the community.
“It’s a rich county going through a lot of transformations,I’m seeing more smaller and medium-size companies than I did several years ago,” he said. “Also its economic base is much more diverse now than it used to be. I can remember when the aerospace sector dominated the county’s economy.”
Unnikrishnan said he also believes the county’s strong industrial base in areas such as instrumentation, combined with tourism and other features of the economy, make OC “extremely vibrant economically.”
The incoming dean said he plans to establish tighter connections between his department and regional industry, and wants to spend time in the community keeping an eye open for opportunities.
“A very important part of my assignment here is to link up the university with local industry and also develop more research at the school in the traditional sense,” he said. “A university ought to be a source of useful and current information to business.”
Unnikrishnan said he wants to intensify student recruitment and also explore ways of improving the college’s retention of students.
“Retention is important,” he said. “Computer science and engineering departments have a history of losing students who decide to move to other disciplines, and many students also leave for academic reasons.”
Unnikrishnan is credited with enhancing the research of the electrical engineering faculty at Rochester, while improving the department’s national reputation. Last year, U.S. News & World Report ranked the department as having the fifth-best electrical engineering program among comprehensive institutions nationally.
Officials at Cal State Fullerton in May made the decision to appoint Raman Unnikrishnan as head of the school’s College of Engineering and Computer Science.
Unnikrishnan had worked at the Rochester Institute of Technology since 1975, a full professor since 1985. He obtained his doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1975.
Last year, Unnikrishnan recruited Intel Corp. to recognize honors electrical engineering students at RIT with cash and product awards. He had previously obtained grants for lab upgrades from Intel, and also had obtained funding during his post from IBM Corp., NEC Corp., Xerox Corp., Texas Instruments Inc., and the Rochester-based Gleason Foundation.
Unnikrishnan is succeeding Richard Rocke, who was acting dean of Cal State Fullerton’s College of Engineering and Computer Science for 3 1/2 years.
Unnikrishnan’s wife, Rema,a clinical psychologist employed by the state of New York,will be joining him here shortly. They have two sons,one attends Northwestern University in Chicago and the elder son works and lives in Rochester.
The Unnikrishnans will live in Fullerton. Raman Unnikrishnan’s hobbies include sports, reading and woodworking. n
