George Konidaris Receives The Latest Brown CS Named Professorship
- Posted by Jesse Polhemus
- on May 30, 2019
Click the links that follow for more news about George Konidaris, the CS With Impact campaign, and the John E. Savage Endowed Professorship in Computer Science.
Brown University's Department of Computer Science (Brown CS) is pleased to announce that Assistant Professor George Konidaris has become the inaugural holder of the John E. Savage Endowed Professorship in Computer Science. First announced by President Christina Paxson at John's fiftieth anniversary celebration, the professorship was funded with very generous gifts from John's family and friends, and is now the first of what will be ten new endowed professorships in the CS With Impact expansion. As part of this effort, Brown CS will raise a minimum of $40 million to create ten new endowed chairs, which will be supplemented with the creation of five lecturer positions, for a total of fifteen new faculty slots.
"John has been someone I've looked up to since I joined the department that he co-founded," said Konidaris. "He has an incredible record –over half a century!– of technical innovation, dedicated service to Brown, and real public impact. I feel immensely honored to be the first holder of the chair endowed in his name."
A member of the Brown CS faculty since 2016, George is the director of the Intelligent Robot Lab, which aims to build intelligent, autonomous, general-purpose robots that are generally capable in a wide variety of tasks and environments. His many honors include, most recently, an NSF CAREER Award, a Salomon Award, a DARPA Director's Fellowship, and an AFOSR Young Investigator Research Award.
"I am very pleased that George Konidaris is the inaugural holder of a chair in my name," says John. "George has a bright career ahead of him."
George joins seven other holders of Brown CS endowed professorships: Eugene Charniak (University Professor of Computer Science), Maurice Herlihy (An Wang Professor of Computer Science), Sorin Istrail (Julie Nguyen Brown Professor of Computational and Mathematical Sciences and Professor of Computer Science), Roberto Tamassia (Plastech Professor of Computer Science), Stefanie Tellex (Joukowsky Family Assistant Professor of Computer Science), Eliezer Upfal (Rush Hawkins Professor of Computer Science), and Andries van Dam (Thomas J. Watson, Jr., University Professor of Technology and Education and Professor of Computer Science).
For more information, click the link that follows to contact Brown CS Communication Outreach Specialist Jesse C. Polhemus.