To recognize one faculty member annually, who has demonstrated excellence in teaching, research, and/or service. Their service can be to his/her discipline, the University, involvement with students, and/or University community involvement.

Joanne received her PhD in Electrical Engineering from Duke University in 1984 and was a Professor of Computer Science there until coming to our Engineering School in 1993 where she joined the faculty of Electrical Engineering.

With remarkable foresight and energy she proceeded to develop, found and direct our Computer Engineering Program…a program that has met the need of many of our graduates to date and was responsible for the departmental name change to Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The manner in which she went about developing this program is a model for others to follow…she first became an accreditation board for engineering and technology, ABET, program evaluator for computer engineering programs in order to obtain the credentials necessary to create an accreditable program here at UVa.

Shortly afterwards, she created a pilot computer engineering program that complemented the existing electrical engineering and computer science programs already in existence. This has evolved into the ABET accredited bachelor’s degree program that we have today and that graduated 29 students in the last academic year.

She has in addition developed the ME, the MS, and the PhD degree programs in Computer Engineering and provided all the necessary documentation to ultimately get department, school, faculty senate, provost, BOV, and the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia approvals.

Her tireless leadership has led to this very direct and significant impact on the core academic enterprise of the Engineering School and the University.

She designed an assessment plan that most of the other ABET programs at SEAS emulate or have adapted as their own. Additionally, she has served as the SEAS assessment coordinator for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accreditation…this entailed the development of outcomes and assessment plans for ALL of our engineering programs…nearly 50 of them…and the all passed with flying colors.

Joanne has done all of this while still teaching and advising undergraduates in a program of which she is the director, and also directing PhD students in 4 disciplines: Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Systems Engineering.

For this and much more than I have time to talk about, we wish to award Professor Joanne Bechta-Dugan this year’s School of Engineering and Applied Science Distinguished Faculty Award.