LSU Announces New School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

JULY 2, 2012

LSU's Board of Regents recently approved plans to merge the Department of Computer Science (CS) with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), effective July 1, 2012. The new unit of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science will be housed in the College of Engineering.

“The School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science will be the new leader in computational scholarship for this state and is being positioned to become a national leader in the field,” said Jack Hamilton, executive vice chancellor and provost. “This realignment, the result of many meetings with faculty and administrators, will foster greater collaboration among colleagues who have long been pursuing overlapping missions.”

The overall objective of the realignment in serving the academic mission of LSU included repositioning these two organizational units, fostering further collaboration, solidifying academic expertise in the academic disciplines as well as the profession. The result is a new School, combining faculty and housing the unit in the College of Engineering. The CS/ECE merger will yield a much stronger unit for the University and provide a competitive advantage to move forward in these fields.

"LSU’s College of Engineering is dedicated to educating students who transform ideas into reality," said Rick Koubek, dean, LSU College of Engineering. "The College is excited to have computer science and electrical and computer engineering working as a School."

Pratul Ajmera, McDermott International Inc. and Newton B. Thomas Professor, will serve as the interim division chair for electrical engineering and Bijaya B. Karki, associate professor, will serve as interim division chair for computer science. Faculty from both units will move to a new home in Patrick F. Taylor Hall to leverage synergisms that can exist and become a new and more powerful unit through collaboration. Graduate students and research labs will not relocate at this time.

This new School will provide LSU faculty and students a platform to create a powerful and significant unit to pursue research and teaching in the computer science and computer engineering fields, in line with the state’s economic development initiatives in the areas of digital media, digital and social gaming technology and future endeavors.