Başar named director of the Center for Advanced Study

12/15/2014 Daniel Dexter, ECE ILLINOIS

At the beginning of this academic year, Professor Tamer Başar was named the director of the Center for Advanced Study (CAS).

Written by Daniel Dexter, ECE ILLINOIS

At the beginning of this academic year, Professor Tamer Başar was named director of the Center for Advanced Study (CAS).

He was initiated as a permanent member of the Center in 2005 following a rigorous nomination and election process.

Tamer Başar
Tamer Başar
Since being established in 1959, the CAS’s mission has been to promote excellence through scholarly recognition and achievement. The Center’s current roster of members features a Nobel Laureate, a Pulitzer Prize winner, a MacArthur Fellow, and several members of the National Academies, amongst other scholars, who have earned the highest distinctions in their fields.

As its director, Başar is responsible for coordinating the activities of CAS and representing the Center at various public functions. During his tenure, Başar plans to increase the visibility the CAS has on campus and elsewhere.

“The Center also provides a varied and integrative program throughout the year for our sprawling research university and its surrounding community by sponsoring various series of public lectures, long-term visits by world-renowned scholars, interdisciplinary symposia, and a variety of educational programs and special events,” Başar said.

To accomplish this goal, Başar has created an advisory committee and lunch-hour meetings among members to discuss topics of general interest to faculty from multiple disciplines.

He will also be inaugurating a Spring CAS Symposium on April 20-21, 2015, which he plans to host annually. The event will feature research presentations from CAS Associates and Fellows on specific and interdisciplinary topics.

Başar believes his new position is an add-on benefit to ECE ILLINOIS because of the prestige of the CAS, and he will continue his work as an ECE professor, as well.

Of the seven ECE professors to be elected to permanent membership in the Center since its inception, Başar will be the first to serve as director. He views it as an honor to be able help lead an organization of people, whose pursuit is to enrich the academic community in an interdisciplinary manner.

“The Center plays a unique role in supporting the extraordinary human and physical resources of the university by encouraging and promoting exemplary scholarship in all areas of knowledge and across disciplinary lines,” Başar said.


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This story was published December 15, 2014.