Stephen W. Director, Provost
Office of the Provost
3141 Chestnut Street
Philaldelphia, PA 19104
Academic Background
A native of Long Island, Director received a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1965 and master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering in 1967 and 1968, respectively, from the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, he held appointments at Carnegie Mellon University as the U.A. and Helen Whitaker University Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (1980-96), electrical and computer engineering department head (1982-91), university professor (1992-93) and dean of the College of Engineering (1991-96).
Professional Accomplishments
Prior to joining to Drexel University, Stephen W. Director was the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of the College of Engineering and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. He received the B.S. degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1965 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1967 and 1968, respectively. From 1968 until 1977 he was with the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Florida, Gainesville. From September 1974 to August 1975, he was a visiting scientist in the Mathematical Sciences Department at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY. He joined Carnegie Mellon University in 1977 where he was the U.A. and Helen Whitaker University Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and served as Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 1982 to 1991 and then Dean of the College of Engineering until June of 1996. In 1982, he founded the SRC-CMU Research Center for Computer-Aided Design and served as its Director from 1982 to 1989.
Dr. Director is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). He has served as President of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, as Chairman of the CASS Technical Committee on Computer-Aided Network Design (CANDE) and as associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems.
He currently serves as Chair of the National Academy of Engineering Committee on Engineering Education and also serves on numerous other boards and committees and as a consultant to industry, government and academia. He served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Society for Engineering Education Engineering Deans Council from June 1999 through June 2001.
Director has published over 150 papers and authored or co-authored six texts. He has received numerous awards for his research and educational contributions including the 1970 and 1985 Best Paper Awards from the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, the 1976 Frederick Emmons Terman Award from the American Society for Engineering Education, and the 1979 W. R .G. Baker Prize Paper Award from the IEEE. In 1984 he received an IEEE Centennial Medal and was named a Distinguished Alumnus of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He received the Society Award (Van Valkenburg Award) from the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society and Best Paper Award from the ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference in 1992 and the Outstanding Achievement Award from the IEEE Education Society in 1995. In 1996 Dr. Director was selected as the first recipient of the Aristotle Award from the Semiconductor Research Corporation and received the Outstanding Alumnus Award in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He was awarded the 1998 IEEE Education Medal, and in 1999 received the University of California, Berkeley Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award and the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS) Golden Jubilee Medal. In 2000 he received the IEEE Millennium Medal and in 2002 he was named Honorary Professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University by the Chinese Ministry of Education.
Research Interests:
Design Process (Work Flow) Management
This work is aimed at developing a comprehensive design environment, called Odyssey, that supports design process management. The need for such an environment results from the rapid increase in the number and diversity of computer-aided design tools used by VLSI circuit designers as well as an increase in complexity of the circuits being designed. Design process management allows designers to shift their attention to higher levels of abstraction in the design process, thereby allowing them to handle these more complex design problems. In addition, design process management facilitates effective participation in distributed concurrent design teams and aids designers during the early conceptual phases of design.
Statistical VLSI Design
The goal of this research is the development of statistical design methods that can be employed to maximize the yield of manufactured integrated circuits. Due to inherent fluctuations in IC manufacturing processes, many circuits fail to meet performance specifications. Parametric yield maximization techniques can be used to maximize the fraction of acceptable circuits by making the circuit immune to fluctuations.
Recent Publications
"Framework Encapsulations: A New Approach to CAD Tool Interoperability," Proceedings of the 35th Design Automation Conference, pp. 134-139, June 1998 (with P.R. Sutton).
"The Support and Management of Dynamic Conceptual Design Processes," Sixth IEEE/DATC Electronic Design Processes Workshop, April 28-30, 1999 (with J. Zuo).
"Constraint Management for Collaborative Electronic Design," Proceedings of the 36th Design Automation Conference, June 1999 (with J.A. Carballo).
"Criteria 2000 - For Better or Worse?" ASEE Prism, p. 60, March 2000.
"Application of Constraint-Based Heuristics in Collaborative Design," Proceedings of the 38th Design Automation Conference, June 2001 (with J.A. Carballo).
"Licensure vs. Professionalism," NSPE Engineering Times, December 2001.
"Time for a Change," ASEE Prism, p. 60, March 2002.