Meet Anantha Chandrakasan, Dean of Engineering
Chandrakasan: “MIT takes pride in leading rather than following. So, you must be willing to take risks. This is what drives my approach for selecting areas to work on.”
Photo courtesy of ANANTHA CHANDRAKASAN
The School of Engineering’s Dean Anantha P. Chandrakasan has made remarkable contributions to MIT since he joined the Institute in 1994. Known for his key role in electronics research and the founding of many interdisciplinary programs at MIT, Dean Chandrakasan has made a lasting impact on the students.
The Tech sat down with Dean Chandrakasan, who shares the pivotal moments that have shaped his journey at MIT.
TT: Tell us a bit about your journey to MIT
I grew up in Chennai, India, and I was always fascinated by how things work, so engineering was a natural path. I visited my mother in the U.S. during my summer vacation when she was a researcher as a part of the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program. I decided to stay back in the US to pursue my undergraduate degree at U.C. Berkeley in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, after transferring from SFSU (San Francisco State University).
When I was a rising senior, I applied for a summer internship at a wireless company to work on low-power electronics—but I was not selected for it. Fortunately, my academic advisor, the late Professor Robert Brodersen, did offer me a summer internship (equivalent to a UROP at MIT). More than 20 years later, the profound impact of that experience inspired me to create the SuperUROP program at MIT, which allows students to publish papers in top journals. What I saw at MIT was that students got great experiences, but if you want to publish something, it requires a sustained research experience. So, in many ways, being rejected for that outside internship was one of the best things that happened to me!
TT: Did you always want to come to MIT?
For graduate school, I applied to Berkeley and MIT. I was rejected by MIT. I remember being on a call with the MIT graduate office. I was emotional about the rejection—I think I cried—but they were very kind and gave me good advice and valuable support even then. Fortunately, Berkeley did accept me. Ultimately, the doctoral work I did with my advisor on low-power CMOS digital design (the same topic I applied for an undergraduate internship and was rejected) became one of the most cited papers of the prestigious IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.
I applied for faculty positions broadly and had several job offers. It turned out that I was not the top selection for the department for a new hire, but eventually they did offer me a job, and I started a whole new chapter.
As you can see, you need a bit of luck in life. And never forget that, when a door closes on you, if you keep looking for other doors, one of them will open. I am so very fortunate to have ended up at MIT. Don’t take being at MIT and what it can do for you for granted!
TT: How do you think the world’s perception of MIT as an institution of higher learning and its reputation as a leader in research changed over time? In what ways has it stayed the same?
The reputation of MIT has never been stronger. MIT is a place that the world counts on to deliver high-quality solutions to the most challenging societal problems. While that feels like a given here in 02139, the further away you go from Cambridge, the bigger the appreciation for MIT’s impact. The broad-based access to the internet has made MIT innovations and education available more easily. Creating open-source knowledge is the future, and it is fortunately core to MIT’s DNA.
TT: The initiatives you’ve helped to start or chaired span a range of fields—climate, AI, hardware, health, entrepreneurship, graduate and undergraduate education, and so on. How do you keep up with modern developments in all of these avenues?
My job as dean has a fantastic built-in mechanism for keeping up with the most exciting innovations across the Institute, which is that I lead or sit on the review panels for faculty promotion cases across the whole Institute. These are younger faculty members, seeking to go from “assistant professor” to “associate professor without tenure,” or, later on, seeking to get tenure or full professor status. When those cases get presented, you hear about their work, and it’s just incredible.
Another source of energy and inspiration for me is my interactions with the outside world and the intuitions I get about where the world needs impactful solutions. This is why it’s so valuable for all of us here to engage with external stakeholders, including Corporation members, industry leaders, academic leaders, and government officials.
Finally, being actively involved in research is critical to understanding the latest trends. My research as an administrator is better and more impactful than being a faculty member, because you get to understand better what having an impact means.
MIT takes pride in leading rather than following. So, you must be willing to take risks. This is what drives my approach for selecting areas to work on.
TT: Could you tell us about some of the research your group is working on?
Right now, my lab works a lot on ingestible electroceuticals with Professors Gio Traverso and Bob Langer. There's research on an electrical pill that you swallow which can detect specific conditions in your stomach and treat conditions with electrical stimulation. We do the security electronics for that, because it turns out you can hack into that.
Another thing we did was cochlear implants. Cochlear implants have a microphone on the outside, and it transmits acoustic signals inside wirelessly. But we built it so you don't need an outside unit. We also harvested energy from the inner ear.
TT: How has being an educator today changed compared to when you first joined MIT’s faculty?
When I started as a junior faculty member at MIT, the focus was much more on the core of teaching and research. Now, there is a broader sense of community building and connecting across the Institute. While it is still possible to stay in your lane and be successful, there are many more opportunities now to collaborate across units on education and research. Look at the cross-cutting publications that are coming up and how many people are collaborating because of the tools you need!
The way to have impact is to work across boundaries. That's why I create many of the cross cutting programs, So one challenge is, how do you get to know people? I don't think we give enough opportunities for people to discover each other across departments. We can do more to facilitate this as an administration.
TT: What were your initial thoughts about being named the inaugural Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer?
It is both an honor and privilege to be MIT’s inaugural Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer. I only wish my parents were alive to see the continued impact they have had on me.
I am so grateful that President Kornbluth entrusted me with this important role to contribute to the implementation of her strategic priorities for the Institute. I also collaborate closely with Provost Barnhart to implement many of the new programs. This year, we will launch two new initiatives: the MIT Human Insight Collaborative and the MIT Life Sciences and Health Collaborative. MIT students will be different from other engineers, because they will have the human perspective. For me, making a small positive contribution to the future of MIT is extraordinarily satisfying.
TT: Over the past year, you’ve been meeting with government officials of foreign countries, including the Prime Ministers of India and Greece and the President of South Korea, to discuss topics like technology and economics. How do you see MIT’s role evolving on the international as well as the domestic stage? What is the value of MIT hearing the perspectives of foreign countries?
“The mission of MIT is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.”
Meetings with leaders around the globe are critical to sharpen our priorities and position our students for success in their lives and careers in an interconnected global world. I learn so much from my meetings with the various global leaders.
I strongly believe in a global perspective on technology and society. There is so much for us to learn from each other to make a better world. There is also an opportunity to bring an “MIT-inside” solution to many problems around the world. The diversity of brilliant students and their global perspectives is one of MIT’s core strengths.
It has also been an honor to organize educational programming for policymakers and military leaders in the US, from the United States Special Operations Command to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. We have an important role in educating policymakers on important topics such as AI, cybersecurity, semiconductors, quantum computing, and biotechnology, and I take that responsibility very seriously.
TT: How did your parents and upbringing influence your choice of career? Do you continue to be inspired by them in what you do today?
Without a doubt, my parents had a huge influence on me. My mother, a biochemist, brought me to her lab often to see her perform experiments, and she talked about advancing science all the time. I will never be able to match her energy and her hard work ethic. She published important work related to collagen and wound healing.
My father had an impact on my systems thinking; his mechanical intuition was remarkable and always helped me visualize solutions. He ran a factory for sheet metal fabrication. But more than anything, he was incredibly kind, and that is an attribute that I continue to strive to emulate.
Of course, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a pilot flying a 747… I used to spend hours in any given day with a Pan-Am toy airplane that my father got me when I was very young.
TT: For fun, what does a day in your life look like?
I am a huge sports fan. Particularly, a 49ers football fan. This is no surprise given I was studying in the Bay Area when they were winning championships. The 49ers definitely rank higher in my priority list than MIT or any of my academic pursuits!
TT: Favorite meal or snack spot in the area?
It used to be Mary Chung. Partly it was the comfort food, but I also remember the times we went there as a family. The staff was always so kind and treated us extremely well. And of course, I miss the days when we had dozens of food trucks at MIT!
Bonus: How Dean Chandrakasan almost did not become our Dean…
As Dean Chandrakasan mentioned, he was not the top pick for the faculty position opening in 1994. It was Dr. Andrea Goldsmith, now Princeton University’s Dean of Engineering and Applied Science. Both attended graduate school at U.C. Berkeley, but did not know of each other until their graduation, where they sat next to each other by chance. Here, they recount how they met.
Dean Goldsmith: Dean Chandrakasan and I were talking at graduation about our future plans. I did not know he had applied to MIT until that conversation, when he told me that his MIT offer depended on whether or not I turned them down.
Dean Chandrakasan: Essentially, it was a chance meeting and sitting next to each other at graduation! We met, and I shared I was in the running but waiting for the candidate. You shared that was you.
Dean Goldsmith: When I learned during our graduation conversation that my choice would allow Dean Chandrakasan to accept his top choice of faculty positions, I was thrilled for him. We were both just about to start our academic careers.
MIT could not have made a better choice than to hire Dean Chandrakasan in 1994. I consider him to be one of the most pre-eminent scholars and academic leaders in the world. In particular he has been an outstanding leader and visionary for MIT's School of Engineering, taking it to new heights of research, education, and impact.
Dean Chandrakasan: And Andrea has had a spectacular career—leading wireless communications research from theory to practice as well as leadership in IEEE and academia.
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October 24, 2024 (10:43 PM): Minor edits were made to the article at Dean Chandrakasan's request, to a question posed in the interview regarding the current research work of his lab group, for technical accuracy.