A respected researcher, educator and campus leader, engineering professor Alina Zare, Ph.D., has won Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering’s 2026 Faculty Award for Excellence in Leadership.
The Malachowsky Family Endowed Professor and director of the Artificial Intelligence and Informatics Research Institute, Zare works in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, known as ECE. She was nominated for her service to ECE and research but also for her work outside of labs and classrooms.
Zare led significant campus improvements, including the relocation of the ECE and the Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering into Malachowsky Hall, initiating a $30 million renovation of the Chemical Engineering Building and overseeing a $7 million upgrade to enhance biomedical research facilities, noted ECE Chair Mark Tehranipoor.
“Dr. Alina Zare’s extraordinary leadership — rooted in vision, inspiration, clear communication, mission‐driven action, fairness, collaboration and unwavering positivity — has transformed departments, propelled interdisciplinary research, and elevated the university’s standing within the broader engineering community. She embodies the very qualities we wish to honor with the Faculty Award for Excellence in Leadership,” noted Sandip Ray, Ph.D., the ECE Warren B. Nelms Endowed Professor and ECE Honors and Awards Committee chair.
In 2024, Ray said, the university appointed Zare as director of the Artificial Intelligence and Informatics Research Institute.
“She set an ambitious mission to catalyze interdisciplinary AI research across UF,” Ray said. “The AI Research Seed Fund she launched has already awarded more than $550,000 to nascent collaborations. She also created an annual AI Research Awards program to celebrate outstanding faculty achievements. These initiatives illustrate her clear vision for positioning UF at the forefront of AI innovation.”
In his nomination letter, Tehranipoor praised Zare for her work as director of UF’s Artificial Intelligence and Informatics Research Institute, where she set a bold mission and launched programs that are already generating impact. She established annual AI Research Awards recognizing faculty across three colleges.
“I’m honored by this recognition and grateful to my college and colleagues,” Zare said. “I’ll see this as an opportunity to renew my commitment to supporting my colleagues where I can in their AI research efforts.”