Dean's message
New dual role at UC San Diego
January 2024
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I am thrilled to announce that I have taken on an exciting new dual role at UC San Diego. As outlined in this campus notice, for the next five years, I will serve both as Special Adviser to the Chancellor for Campus Strategic Initiatives and as Dean of the Irwin and Joan Jacobs School of Engineering. My new five-year term in this dual role began on January 1, 2024.
Yes, you read that right. Late last year, I did indeed announce that I planned to retire from the university and step down as Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering on June 30, 2024. After I announced my plans to retire, I kept talking with campus leadership about things dear to my heart: the transition plans and strategies that would maintain the positive momentum and impact of the Jacobs School while also advancing strategic initiatives of our campus overall. Out of this dialogue with Chancellor Khosla, Executive Vice Chancellor Simmons and others, emerged a new opportunity: to serve as Dean of the Jacobs School while also working directly with the Chancellor on campus-wide strategic initiatives in education, research and innovation.
One piece of advice I regularly give students is to “Find your Why.” Ever since I arrived on campus on September 1, 2013, my big-picture “Why?” has been to leverage engineering and computer science in order to improve lives and generate positive impacts for society. Engineers and computer scientists dedicated to the public good can not afford to work in isolation. My efforts have brought the Jacobs School into close collaboration with every school on our campus. Solving the toughest challenges facing society requires unprecedented levels of collaboration from all disciplines and all corners of campus, as well as from myriad external partners. Returning to my “Why?” I realized that this new, bigger opportunity was exactly the new thing I needed to do.
Therefore, I am honored to take on this campuswide leadership responsibility while also leading the Jacobs School as Dean. I see this as a truly win-win scenario for both the Jacobs School and for UC San Diego overall. In fact, this new role both formalizes and expands much of the deeply collaborative work I have been doing over the last ten-plus years at UC San Diego.
Together, we can make UC San Diego the most impactful campus in the nation. We can make UC San Diego the place where the shared vision of interdisciplinary education, research and innovation leads – again and again – to game-changing insights, advances and solutions for the public good.
Let’s do this, and do this together!
Read our full January 2024 news email here or read it as a PDF.
Sincerely,
Al
Albert P. Pisano
Dean, UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering
Special Adviser to the Chancellor for Campus Strategic Initiatives