Daily News

UMass Amherst Names Sanjay Raman Dean of College of Engineering

AMHERST — Sanjay Raman, associate vice president for the Virginia Tech National Capital Region and president and CEO of the Virginia Tech Applied Research Corp., has been named the new dean of the College of Engineering at UMass Amherst. The announcement was made by John McCarthy, provost and senior vice chancellor for Academic Affairs. Raman begins his new duties at UMass Amherst in August.

“I’m delighted to welcome Sanjay Raman as our next dean of the College of Engineering,” McCarthy said. “He possesses an outstanding combination of skills in academic leadership, research and development, and collaborating with colleagues across academia, industry, and government. We look forward to drawing upon his rich experience in establishing collaborations within and outside the university.”

Raman succeeds Timothy Anderson who served as UMass Amherst’s dean of the College of Engineering from 2013 to 2018. Anderson is a distinguished professor in Chemical Engineering and remains on the faculty. 

At Virginia Tech, Raman is a tenured full professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) based at the Virginia Tech Research Center in Arlington, Va. From 1998 to 2009, he was assigned to the Virginia Tech main campus in Blacksburg.

As the associate vice president for the Virginia Tech National Capital Region, Raman is responsible for planning and executing region-wide initiatives to enhance the university’s research, education, and outreach missions, focusing on cross-cutting themes of data and decision science, integrated security, intelligent infrastructure, global systems science, policy, innovation, and entrepreneurship. 

Since July 2016, he has also served as the president and CEO of the Virginia Tech Applied Research Corp., a 501(c)(3) university-affiliated research organization whose mission is to deliver analytic and technology solutions to the university’s government and non-government customers.

From 2007 to 2013, Raman served as a program manager in the Microsystems Technology Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, on loan from the university under Intergovernmental Personnel Act assignments. He is also a graduate of the Virginia Tech Executive Development Institute.

Raman earned his doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1998 and joined the ECE faculty at Virginia Tech. Prior to his doctoral studies at the University of Michigan, Raman served as a nuclear-trained submarine officer in the U.S. Navy from 1987 to 1992. He earned a bachelor’s of electrical engineering degree, with highest honors, from Georgia Tech in 1987.

Raman is a founding member of the Virginia Tech Multifunctional Integrated Circuits and Systems group, focused on innovative research in analog, mixed-signal, and RF/microwave/mm-wave IC designs, optoelectronics, and RF interfaces. He is an elected fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for leadership in adaptive microwave and millimeter-wave integrated circuits. He is also an elected member of the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society.