A message from the interim dean

A message from interim dean Alan Mislove

Date: 07.01.21

While many of you may know me already, I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. I began my career at Northeastern in the fall of 2009 as an assistant professor. Since then, over the intervening 12 years, I have been in a variety of different roles throughout Khoury college. While I did not anticipate serving as interim dean at this stage of my career, I am truly humbled by the opportunity to serve the college and university, and to take on the leadership of Khoury at this important moment in time.

As we return to campus this fall – and hopefully a semblance of normalcy, I wanted to share a few of my thoughts on the priorities for the upcoming year.

Alan MisloveAlan Mislove

First and foremost, I will continue to champion Khoury College’s world-class research and co-operative education endeavors. Under the leadership of Dean Larry Finkelstein and Dean Carla Brodley, Khoury College became one of the top-15 US schools in computing. We are at the forefront of computing education with innovative programs in cybersecurity, data science, and interdisciplinary computing. Notably, in addition to our top-tier research groups, our Align program is now being replicated at other top institutions around the country.

Secondly, I plan to continue to keep diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and belonging (DEIAB) at the forefront of Khoury College’s mission. Facing these issues head-on and maintaining “CS for everyone” at the heart of everything we do, is interwoven with our identity as a college. Most notably, I am thrilled that our incoming first-year class is the most diverse to date, which reflects the commitment to inclusivity in computing across both Khoury College and Northeastern. I want Khoury College to be a place where everyone feels welcome, and we will continue to be a national leader in inclusivity.

Thirdly, I want to leverage Khoury College and Northeastern’s unique interdisciplinary research and educational programs to further raise our international profile. Khoury continues to be a leader in interdisciplinary education in conjunction with the other colleges at Northeastern. Many of our faculty hold joint appointments and our unique curriculum offers a large number of joint programs. I believe in the importance of interdisciplinary work, as the future of computing will be driven by how computing is used and how we use computing to impact society.

While this is not an exhaustive list, it is an important one, and I hope this message provides a guideline for my priorities for the coming year. I look forward to what is hopefully a more normal year ahead. Enjoy the remainder of your summer, and I look forward to seeing many of you on campus once again.

Sincerely,
Alan