Libeskind-Hadas Honored as Distinguished Educator

Ran Libeskind-Hadas

Computer Science Department Chair Ran Libeskind-Hadas will receive the 2012 Distinguished Alumni Educator Award from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The award honors computer science alumni who have made outstanding contributions to computer science education and excel at motivating computer science students.

Libeskind-Hadas will receive the award Nov. 1 at the university’s annual Department of Computer Science Alumni Awards Banquet in Champaign, Ill.

Libeskind-Hadas joined the Harvey Mudd College faculty in 1993. In 1996, he was awarded the Iris and Howard Critchell Assistant Professorship, which honors a junior professor who has exhibited an unusual talent for mentoring and counseling students in all aspects of their lives. In  2005, he was the first to be named the Joseph B. Platt Endowed Chair for effective teaching.

During his tenure at HMC, Libeskind-Hadas has supervised more than 40 undergraduate research students, 16 senior theses and 15 yearlong clinic projects. He encouraged the formation of the HMC student chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery and serves as the chapter’s advisor. He also serves as co-chair of the Computing Research Association’s Education Committee, and is serving his third term on the Computing Community Consortium, a national committee tasked with helping the computing community develop research visions.

Libeskind-Hadas Hadas received his bachelor’s in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 1987 and his master’s and doctorate in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989 and 1993, respectively. His research, while generally focused on design and analysis of algorithms, has recently centered on algorithms for computational biology.