New SEAS Faculty Bring Expertise and Logistical Headaches

A “bumper crop” of eight new professors has been a welcome addition to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, even as the new faculty members compounded pressures on the school’s already-limited office space.

In computer science, the area in which five of the eight new faculty teach, the hires add much-needed heft to a department that former interim SEAS dean and Computer Science professor Harry R. Lewis ’68 said had been operating at “subcritical” size. With the new professors, the number of courses the Computer Science department offers has increased, and SEAS more broadly listed about a dozen new courses for the 2015-2016 academic year.

Former Microsoft CEO Steve A. Ballmer '77, left, jokes with with Harvard Computer Science Area Dean David C. Parkes during an interview with The Crimson in late 2014 regarding his donation to the computer science division. By Tiana A Abdulmassih

Madhu Sudan, a recent hire for Computer Science, reiterated the department’s pressing need for new faculty, saying that while Harvard has always recruited strong individual Computer Science professors, the department on the whole “has not been so strong.”

The new faculty, who matriculated last semester, were hired as part of an approximated $60 million donation from former Microsoft CEO Steve A. Ballmer ’77 intended to fund 12 professorships in computer science. A record-breaking gift from John A. Paulson in the summer of 2015 means that the school has the financial capacity to continue hiring, a major priority in the school’s $450 million capital campaign. Physical limitations, however, persist.

Many SEAS departments are slated to move to a new Allston campus in 2020, but in the interim, long-standing space constraints make it feel “extremely cramped,” Lewis said. For Sudan, his new office in Maxwell-Dworkin is “wonderful,” but he “can see that we don’t have the room to stay this way.”

Paul Karoff, a spokesperson for SEAS, said a group of administrators dedicated to “space planning” is looking for new ways to ease constraints. The school has already relocated some administrative staff to satellite office space in Harvard Square and reclaimed the offices of faculty on extended leave.

Luckily, computer scientists—particularly those who specialize in theory—don’t require much space to work, unlike some of their counterparts who work out of laboratories. Indeed, a number of the recent hires focus on the theoretical side of computer science, for which Harvard’s department is already known. Both Sudan and Boaz Barak, another new computer science professor, conduct their research in more theoretical areas of computing.But at least one new professor, Scott Kuindersma, focuses on the application of computer science through his work on robotics.

While the addition of new faculty members adds space constraints an already cramped school, Lewis and Sudan said the new hires are well worth the additional pressures.

“We’re going to make it work,” said Lewis. “We’ll convert. We’ll double-bunk if we have to for the next four years. We’ll make it work because we’re not going to let that stop the hiring process.”

If SEAS can “make it work” logistically, Lewis said he believes that the concentrated growth in faculty could bolster Harvard’s engineering—and computer science in particular—to levels that rival some of its traditional competitors. The renewed focus on engineering, Lewis said, should have been a priority long ago.

“We should have gotten on the train when some of the other departments did decades ago,” said Lewis. “But, they have no growth capacity. They have to wait for people to retire now, and we actually have incremental appointments we can make which is a huge, huge, advantage for us.”

—Staff writer C. Ramsey Fahs can be reached at ramsey.fahs@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @ramseyfahs.