Active 1994 - 2016; Emeritus 2016 - 2023
Dr. Jeanne Ferrante always imagined being a professor, but had spent most of her computer science career at IBM Research where she met her husband, Larry Carter. In 1992, while on a sabbatical in Boulder, they learned from colleagues at IBM that the Research Division was in a major transition and when they returned, decided to look for academic jobs. They were encouraged by then UC San Diego faculty member, Francine Berman, to apply to UCSD and were both offered full professorships. Her research career explored how software could best take advantage of computer hardware, such as parallelism and memory hierarchy.
She served as Computer Science and Engineering Department Chair from 1996-99, Associate Dean of Engineering from 2002 -2013, and Associate Vice Chancellor, Faculty Equity from 2008-2013. She took on the latter two positions in order to advance faculty diversity in engineering, and eventually campus-wide. During that time, Dr. Ferrante helped initiate the first Faculty Equity Advisors and coordinated new faculty hiring procedures that incorporated contributions to diversity. She met many influential colleagues at UCSD, citing women faculty and staff, especially when co-founding the Women's Leadership Alliance on campus. This grass-roots group of senior women faculty and staff provided networking, promoted leadership, professional development and recognition. She is still in contact with some of them today.
Dr. Ferrante cites her most important contribution at UCSD as co-founding Teams in Engineering Service, an academic program in which multidisciplinary teams of undergraduates work with non-profit organizations to solve technology-based problems for their partners. It is still going strong as Global TIES. Her most memorable experience while teaching was getting to know students, both graduates and undergraduates.
Through her years of teaching, Dr. Ferrante acquired a few tips for faculty members and current students. First, to find good mentors. For faculty members, she encourages setting up an academic support group and taking sabbaticals to broaden your outlook.
In retirement, Dr. Ferrante continues her UCSD involvement through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute on campus, organizing and giving talks, and getting involved in acting and improvisation (noting, it would have been most helpful in academic life!). She also served on the Board of the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus.