Powering possibilities
The Chen-Luan Family Faculty Development Professorship in ECE will help attract and retain early and mid-career faculty.
After arriving at U-M in the mid-1980s as a graduate student from China, Enke Chen found himself at something of a crossroads.
“I was new to this country, had to improve my English and, financially, well, it wasn’t easy to get financial support back then,” said Chen (MSE EE ’87, PhD ’91). He would eventually go on to an acclaimed career in the development of internet technologies, including routers.
Help first arrived in the form of Stéphane Lafortune, the N. Harris McClamroch Collegiate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science—serving as both a teacher and Chen’s PhD advisor.
“He encouraged me to take classes in computer science covering topics like operating systems and databases,” said Chen, now a senior distinguished engineer at Palo Alto Networks. “His classes were organized very well and they inspired students to think deeper.”
Another boost came just after he completed his education at U-M.
“After earning my PhD in 1991, it was during a major recession—a difficult time to find a job,” he said. “At the time, my wife and I already had a child, and it was just a very vulnerable time.”
A U-M teaching assistant position allowed Chen and his wife, Huiyi Luan, the stability to launch their young family on a path to success. The couple is now looking to return the favor for other researchers finding their way.
Last year, they established the Chen-Luan Family Faculty Development Professorship in ECE, which will help attract and retain early and mid-career faculty. The first recipient is Necmiye Ozay, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering as well as robotics.
Ozay is a leading expert in hybrid systems and system identification. She has already made fundamental contributions with far-reaching impacts on control theory, as well as related fields such as computer vision, machine learning and formal verification.
“This professorship gives me and my research group both the motivation and resources to experiment with more high-risk, high-reward ideas,” Ozay said. “It encourages you to dream big and take the steps necessary to achieve your goals.”