Provost

Biography

Anantha P. Chandrakasan is MIT's provost and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He serves as chair of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium and the MIT AI Hardware Program, as well as co-chair of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, the MIT-Takeda Program, and the MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Industry and Technology. As head of the MIT Office of Innovation and Strategy, he has oversight of the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative (MIT HEALS) and the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium (MGAIC), and co-chair of the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC) and MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance.

He earned his bachelor’s (1989), master’s (1990), and doctoral (1994) degrees in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the MIT faculty in 1994 and was the director of the MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories from 2006 to 2011. He was appointed head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) in July 2011, a position that concluded with his appointment as dean of the School of Engineering in July 2017. He began a concurrent appointment as MIT’s inaugural chief innovation and strategy officer in 2024, before becoming provost in 2025.

As dean of engineering for eight years, Chandrakasan implemented various interdisciplinary programs, creating new models for how academia and industry can work together to accelerate the pace of research. This has resulted in the launch of a number of new initiatives and programs including the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium, the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, the MIT-Takeda Program, the MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative, the MIT Mobility Initiative, the MIT Quest for Intelligence, the MIT AI Hardware Program, the MIT-Northpond Program, the MIT Faculty Founder Initiative, and the MIT-Novo Nordisk Artificial Intelligence Postdoctoral Fellows Program.

Chandrakasan also played a role in establishing initiatives beyond the School of Engineering. He was instrumental in founding the Schwarzman College of Computing in 2018, marking the most significant structural change to MIT in 70 years. As MIT's inaugural Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, he collaborated with key stakeholders across MIT, as well as external partners, to launch initiatives and new collaborations in support of the Institute’s strategic priorities – including MITHIC, MIT HEALS, MGAIC, the MIT Initiative for New Manufacturing (INM), and the MIT-GE Vernova Alliance.

One of his top priorities as dean was to foster a sense of community within MIT’s largest school. He has launched several programs to give students and staff a more active role in shaping the initiatives and operations of the school, including the Staff Advice & Implementation Committee, the undergraduate Student Advisory Group, the Graduate Student Advisory Group, the Faculty Gender Equity Committee, and the MIT School of Engineering Postdoctoral Fellowship Program for Engineering Excellence. Working closely with GradSage, Chandrakasan has also played a role in establishing the Daniel J. Riccio Graduate Engineering Leadership Program.

As head of MIT’s largest academic department, EECS, Chandrakasan spearheaded initiatives that enabled students, postdocs, and faculty to conduct research, explore entrepreneurial projects, and engage with EECS. For students, one of these initiatives included the Advanced Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, known as “SuperUROP,” a year-long independent research program launched in 2012 and expanded to the whole School of Engineering in 2015. He also created Start6, which expanded to StartMIT, an independent activities period (IAP) class that provides students and postdocs the opportunity to learn from and interact with industrial innovation leaders. Finally, he created Rising Stars in EECS, an academic career workshop that rotates amongst various universities and has become a model for similar efforts in other disciplines.

Chandrakasan also leads the MIT Energy-Efficient Circuits and Systems Group, whose research projects have addressed security hardware, energy harvesting, and wireless charging for the internet of things; energy-efficient circuits and systems for multimedia processing; and platforms for ultra-low-power biomedical electronics.

He is a co-author of Low Power Digital CMOS Design (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995), Digital Integrated Circuits (Pearson Prentice-Hall, 2nd edition, 2003), and Sub-threshold Design for Ultra-Low Power Systems (Springer, 2006). He was also recognized as the author with the highest number of publications in the 60-year history of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Solid-State Circuits Conference.

Chandrakasan is the recipient of the 2019 Solid-State Circuit Society’s Distinguished Service Award, the 2013 IEEE Donald O. Pederson Award in Solid-State Circuits, the 2009 Semiconductor Industry Association University Researcher Award, an honorary doctorate from KU Leuven in 2016 and the National Technical University of Athens in 2024,, and the 2017 UC Berkeley EE Distinguished Alumni Award. He is also the recipient of the 2022 IEEE Mildred Dresselhaus Medal.

A fellow of the IEEE, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2015, elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2019, and elected as fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 2020.

Chandrakasan currently serves on the board of Natcast and the SMART Governing Board and previously served on the boards of Analog Devices Inc., The Engine, and the Perkins School for the Blind.