Andrea Goldsmith named dean of engineering at Princeton University

EECS alumna Andrea Goldsmith (B.A. ’86/M.S. ’91/Ph.D. ’94, advisor: Pravin Varaiya), who was named Berkeley EE Distinguished Alumna in 2018, has been named dean of Princeton University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.  Goldsmith has been a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford since 1999 and is a leader in the fields of information theory and communications. She helped lay the mathematical foundations for increasing the capacity, speed and range of wireless systems, and among her 29 patents are many inventions central to cell phone and Wi-Fi networks.  Earlier this month, Goldsmith became the first woman to win the Marconi Prize, said to be the highest honor in telecommunications research.  She has also been active in efforts to increase diversity in STEM fields and is the founding chair of the IEEE Board of Directors Committee on Diversity, Inclusion and Ethics.  When she starts her tenure as dean in September, she will oversee a school comprising six departments and four research centers, including new initiatives in bioengineering, data science and robotics, among others.