Anantha P. Chandrakasan

Anantha P. Chandrakasan is the dean of the MIT School of Engineering and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and co-chair of the MIT–IBM Watson AI Lab and the MIT-Takeda Program. He is devoted to sustaining and enhancing the school’s position of leadership in the world with policies and practices that accelerate scientific discovery and the application of knowledge for the betterment of humankind.

Born in Chennai, India, Chandrakasan moved to the United States while in high school. His mother was a biochemist and Fulbright scholar. Spending time in her labs inspired his love of research and open-ended problem-solving. He earned his bachelor’s (1989), master’s (1990), and doctoral (1994) degrees in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. After joining the MIT faculty, he was the director of the Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) from 2006 until he became the head the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) in 2011, a position that concluded with his appointment as dean in July 2017.

During his six-year tenure as head of MIT’s largest academic department, Chandrakasan spearheaded a number of initiatives that enabled students, postdocs, and faculty to conduct research, explore entrepreneurial projects, and engage with EECS. For students, one of these included the Advanced Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, known as “SuperUROP,” a year-long independent research program that provides tools for students to do publication-quality research. It was launched in EECS in 2012 and expanded to the whole School of Engineering in 2015.

In addition, Chandrakasan is committed to advancing diversity and the enhancement of the student experience. While at the helm of EECS, he created the Rising Stars program, an annual event that convenes graduate and postdoc women for the purpose of sharing advice about the early stages of an academic career. He initiated Postdoc6, which aims to foster a sense of community for postdocs and help them develop skills that will serve their careers. And he created Start6, which expanded to StartMIT, an independent activities period (IAP) class, provides students and postdocs the opportunity to learn from and interact with industrial innovation leaders.

To advance the frontiers of STEM education, Chandrakasan is exploring how to best use different kinds of novel teaching methods. In 2014, EECS developed one of the first certificate-granting courses for MITx, the Institute’s massive open online course (MOOC) effort, in support of XSeries, which provides integrated offerings that help reimagine the building blocks that structure learning in the digital environment.

In 2017, Chandrakasan formed the first dean’s student advisory councils – the undergraduate Student Advisory Group (SAGE) and Graduate Student Advisory Group (GradSAGE) – enabling a direct connection between the School of Engineering’s student population and administration, through regular meetings with the dean.

Like MIT as a whole, Chandrakasan is committed to supporting the conversion of discoveries and inventions into practical technologies, products, and services in the world. As such, he has a long-standing interest in creating opportunities for innovation outside the lab. He is a board member and served as the chair of the MIT advisory committee dealing with MIT policies for The Engine, an accelerator launched by MIT to support startup companies working on scientific and technological innovation with the potential for transformative societal impact. He serves on the Board of Analog Devices Inc., the SMART Governing Board, and the Board of Trustees of the Perkins School for the Blind.

Apart from his administrative roles, Chandrakasan has produced a significant body of research since joining the MIT faculty in 1994. It has focused largely on making electronic circuits more energy efficient. His early work on low-power chips for portable computers helped make possible the development of today’s smartphones and other mobile devices. More recently, his research has addressed the challenge of powering even more energy-constrained technologies, such as the “internet of things” that would allow many everyday devices to send and receive data via networked servers while being powered from a tiny energy source.

From 2010–2018, he served as Conference Chair of the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), and in 2019 he received the Solid- State Circuit Society’s Distinguished Service Award. He serves as the Senior Technical Advisor to the Conference starting ISSCC 2019. He is a recipient of several awards including the 2009 Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) University Researcher Award, the 2013 IEEE Donald O. Pederson Award in Solid-State Circuits, an honorary doctorate from KU Leuven in 2016, and the UC Berkeley EE Distinguished Alumni Award in 2017. He was also recognized as the author with the highest number of publications in the 60-year history of the IEEE ISSCC. A fellow of IEEE, in 2015 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and in 2019 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Chandrakasan also leads the MIT Energy-Efficient Circuits and Systems Group, whose research projects have addressed security hardware, energy harvesting, and wireless charging for the internet of things; energy-efficient circuits and systems for multimedia processing; and platforms for ultra-low-power biomedical electronics.

He has provided windows into these digital worlds as co-author of Low Power Digital CMOS Design (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995), Digital Integrated Circuits (Pearson Prentice-Hall, 2003, 2nd edition), and Sub-threshold Design for Ultra-Low Power Systems (Springer 2006).

As dean, Chandrakasan aims to build a culture that emphasizes meritocratic openness to talent and ideas from all over the world, vibrant intellectual exchange, and interdisciplinary collaborations around complex societal problems, such as energy, water, food, transportation, security, health, environmental quality, and economic development. His leadership style emphasizes listening to and integrating the views of faculty and students into a shared vision.

Anantha P. Chandrakasan is MIT's provost and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He serves as chair of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium and the MIT AI Hardware Program, as well as co-chair of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, the MIT-Takeda Program, and the MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Industry and Technology. As head of the MIT Office of Innovation and Strategy, he has oversight of the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative (MIT HEALS) and the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium (MGAIC), and co-chair of the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC) and MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance.
He earned his bachelor’s (1989), master’s (1990), and doctoral (1994) degrees in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the MIT faculty in 1994 and was the director of the MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories from 2006 to 2011. He was appointed head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) in July 2011, a position that concluded with his appointment as dean of the School of Engineering in July 2017. He began a concurrent appointment as MIT’s inaugural chief innovation and strategy officer in 2024, before becoming provost in 2025.
As dean of engineering for eight years, Chandrakasan implemented various interdisciplinary programs, creating new models for how academia and industry can work together to accelerate the pace of research. This has resulted in the launch of a number of new initiatives and programs including the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium, the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, the MIT-Takeda Program, the MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative, the MIT Mobility Initiative, the MIT Quest for Intelligence, the MIT AI Hardware Program, the MIT-Northpond Program, the MIT Faculty Founder Initiative, and the MIT-Novo Nordisk Artificial Intelligence Postdoctoral Fellows Program.
Chandrakasan also played a role in establishing initiatives beyond the School of Engineering. He was instrumental in founding the Schwarzman College of Computing in 2018, marking the most significant structural change to MIT in 70 years. As MIT's inaugural Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, he collaborated with key stakeholders across MIT, as well as external partners, to launch initiatives and new collaborations in support of the Institute’s strategic priorities – including MITHIC, MIT HEALS, MGAIC, the MIT Initiative for New Manufacturing (INM), and the MIT-GE Vernova Alliance.
One of his top priorities as dean was to foster a sense of community within MIT’s largest school. He has launched several programs to give students and staff a more active role in shaping the initiatives and operations of the school, including the Staff Advice & Implementation Committee, the undergraduate Student Advisory Group, the Graduate Student Advisory Group, the Faculty Gender Equity Committee, and the MIT School of Engineering Postdoctoral Fellowship Program for Engineering Excellence. Working closely with GradSage, Chandrakasan has also played a role in establishing the Daniel J. Riccio Graduate Engineering Leadership Program.


As head of MIT’s largest academic department, EECS, Chandrakasan spearheaded initiatives that enabled students, postdocs, and faculty to conduct research, explore entrepreneurial projects, and engage with EECS. For students, one of these initiatives included the Advanced Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, known as “SuperUROP,” a year-long independent research program launched in 2012 and expanded to the whole School of Engineering in 2015. He also created Start6, which expanded to StartMIT, an independent activities period (IAP) class that provides students and postdocs the opportunity to learn from and interact with industrial innovation leaders. Finally, he created Rising Stars in EECS, an academic career workshop that rotates amongst various universities and has become a model for similar efforts in other disciplines.
Chandrakasan also leads the MIT Energy-Efficient Circuits and Systems Group, whose research projects have addressed security hardware, energy harvesting, and wireless charging for the internet of things; energy-efficient circuits and systems for multimedia processing; and platforms for ultra-low-power biomedical electronics.
He is a co-author of Low Power Digital CMOS Design (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995), Digital Integrated Circuits (Pearson Prentice-Hall, 2nd edition, 2003), and Sub-threshold Design for Ultra-Low Power Systems (Springer, 2006). He was also recognized as the author with the highest number of publications in the 60-year history of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Solid-State Circuits Conference.
Chandrakasan is the recipient of the 2019 Solid-State Circuit Society’s Distinguished Service Award, the 2013 IEEE Donald O. Pederson Award in Solid-State Circuits, the 2009 Semiconductor Industry Association University Researcher Award, an honorary doctorate from KU Leuven in 2016 and the National Technical University of Athens in 2024,, and the 2017 UC Berkeley EE Distinguished Alumni Award. He is also the recipient of the 2022 IEEE Mildred Dresselhaus Medal.
A fellow of the IEEE, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2015, elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2019, and elected as fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 2020.
Chandrakasan currently serves on the board of Natcast and the SMART Governing Board and previously served on the boards of Analog Devices Inc., The Engine, and the Perkins School for the Blind.