Former Engineering Dean and Current Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Professor Elected AAAS Fellow

Four University of Kansas professors have been elected as 2024 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) fellows, a distinct honor within the scientific community. One of them is former dean of engineering and professor of electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) Michael Branicky.

Branicky was recognized for distinguished contributions to modeling, analysis and control of cyber-physical systems, and for applications to networked control systems and robotics. 

As part of his work through KU’s Institute of Information Sciences (I2S), he studies the software that helps machines move. One of Branicky’s research interests involves cyber-physical systems, which help integrate computation and physical components. These systems are applied to a wide range of areas such as agriculture, energy, health care, manufacturing and transportation.

Branicky earned a doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1995. Before joining KU as dean, he was a professor and department chair at Case Western Reserve University.

To become a fellow, a researcher must be nominated by either one of the AAAS’s 24 steering groups, the organization’s CEO or three previously elected fellows, so long as two of those three fellows are not from the nominee’s institution. The nomination is referred to a relevant steering committee, which sends a list of finalists to the AAAS Council for selection.