Vijay K. Dhir, who will step down as dean of the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at the end of 2015, was honored by more than 300 UCLA leaders, faculty, friends and family during a Centennial Campaign Celebration at UCLA’s Covel Commons on Nov. 6. Dhir joined the UCLA faculty in 1974, served as interim dean in 2002 and was named dean in 2003.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block noted UCLA Engineering’s many successes under Dhir’s leadership, among them a rise in school rankings and significant increases in the number of faculty and students; since 2002, the school has added more than 90 new faculty members and grown from about 4,000 students to more than 5,000. The school has also expanded its state-of-the-art research and teaching facilities. In 2007, the 105,000-square-foor Engineering V building was completed, and the new Engineering VI building is due for completion in 2017, at which time the school will have added or refurbished more than 300,000 square feet of teaching and research space in a single decade.
Dhir’s tenure also has been marked by innovations that include the Master’s of Science Online program, which is the top-ranked online engineering program in the country, and the Institute for Technology Advancement, which has helped launch more than 25 companies based on innovations developed by UCLA Engineering faculty and students.
Dhir plans to continue teaching and performing research after his tenure as dean ends. In January 2016, Jayathi Murthy, currently the chair of the mechanical engineering department at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, will become the seventh dean in the 70-year history of UCLA Engineering.
