- José Fortes, Ph.D., was appointed acting ECE chair.
- He has been with UF for over 25 years and remains active in several societies.
- Fortes is focused on supporting ECE’s students, faculty and staff during this transition
José Fortes, Ph.D., professor and AT&T Eminent Scholar, has been appointed the new acting chair of the University of Florida’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
“As acting chair, I am honored by the trust that the college of engineering dean and my colleagues have placed in me to steward the ECE department through an important leadership transition,” said Fortes.
Along with teaching courses and being involved in multiple projects, Fortes’ main research explores the development of cyberinfrastructure of the National Science Foundation-funded Integrated Digitalized Biocollections, or iDigBio, project. He is the principal investigator and committee chair of the Collaborations to Enable Transnational Cyberinfrastructure Applications, or CENTRA, collaborative.
Fortes began his engineering career at the Universidade de Angola and received his Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering in 1978. He then moved to the states and completed his master’s degree in electrical engineering at Colorado State University and then a doctorate in electrical engineering at the University of Southern California in 1980s.
Since joining ECE in 2001, Fortes has been an instrumental and active ECE faculty member. He is a part of different fellowships and editorial boards, including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE, Transactions on Services Computing, IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, the Association for Computing Machinery, or ACM, the Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems, International Journal on Parallel Programming, Cluster Computing: The Journal of Networks, Software Tools and Applications, the Journal of VLSI Signal Processing and the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing.
In May 2019, Fortes was recognized with one of the most prestigious faculty awards, the University of Florida Research Foundation Professor, and is currently a member of the UF Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars.
“Dr. Fortes has made a significant impact on the department through his leadership, scholarship and expertise in computer engineering. This appointment provides continuity in the department while we initiate a national search for the permanent chair,” said Mark Tehranipoor, Ph.D., previous ECE chair and recently appointed dean of the college.
Fortes looks forward to continuing the commitment to the success of ECE’s students, faculty and staff.
“I would strive to build on the department’s many strengths, address opportunities for improvement, and position ECE for continued success in serving the university, the profession and society at large,” said Fortes.
Heading into the semester, Fortes looks forward to creating an environment for success.
“As we navigate this leadership transition, I hope we will continue to support one another, build on our many strengths and work together to address the challenges and opportunities ahead. My commitment is to listen, to be accessible and to do everything I can to create an environment in which our students, faculty and staff can succeed and ECE can continue to grow and excel,” said Fortes.
Fortes began his new role on Aug. 14 and will support the national search for a permanent chair.