Vanderbilt University and the School of Engineering have named Professor Daniel M. Fleetwood to the Olin Henry Landreth Chair in Engineering. Landreth was Vanderbilt’s first professor of engineering and its first dean of engineering. This is a new chair within the School of Engineering and it has been made possible through a gift from an anonymous donor. The seven-year appointment is effective July 1, 2009.
Fleetwood is chair of the electrical engineering and computer science department. He is the author of more than 335 publications on radiation effects in microelectronics, 10 of which have been recognized with outstanding paper awards. These papers have been cited more than 5,900 times. This summer he received the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society’s Merit Award.
“Dan is a highly valued colleague who has served his department, the school, and Vanderbilt University with distinction. Without question, he has made significant contributions to a positive national perception of Engineering at Vanderbilt,” said Kenneth F. Galloway, dean of the School of Engineering.
| Olin H. Landreth: Vanderbilt’s first engineering professor, first Dean Olin Henry Landreth was employed in 1879 by Vanderbilt as its first professor of engineering. Professor Landreth’s primary responsibility was to develop a curriculum in engineering. In 1886, engineering was organized as a department and Landreth became dean. Mechanical Engineering Hall was built in 1888 providing the Department of Engineering with its own building.Landreth left Vanderbilt in 1894 and returned to his alma mater, Union College, Schenectady, New York. Throughout his life, Landreth was extremely active in professional matters. He was the only southern member of the original Council for the Promotion of Engineering Education, now ASEE, when the society was organized in 1893.
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In 1997 Fleetwood received R&D 100 and Industry Week Magazine awards for co-invention of a new type of computer memory chip based on mobile protons in SiO2. This chip was also recognized as Discover Magazine’s 1998 Invention of the Year in computer hardware and electronics.
He is a Fellow of both the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers and The American Physical Society, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Pi Sigma.
In addition, Fleetwood is one of eight Americans who have earned the International Correspondence Chess GrandMaster title, played Board 1 for the United States Correspondence Chess Olympics team in the 15th Olympiad Final (http://www.iccf-webchess.com/), and recently finished 8th in the 18th International Correspondence Chess Championship.
Fleetwood received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in physics from Purdue University in 1980, 1981, and 1984. He joined Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1984, and was named a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in the Radiation Technology and Assurance Department in 1990.
In 1999 he left Sandia to accept the position of professor of electrical engineering at Vanderbilt University. In 2000, he was also named a professor of physics, in 2001 he was appointed Associate Dean for Research of the Vanderbilt School of Engineering, and in 2003 he was named chair of the EECS department.