A $4 million gift by Emanuel E. Landsman '58, SM '59, ScD '66 and his wife, Sheila E. Landsman, to the MIT Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems (LEES) and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) will provide a career development professorship, fellowship support and UROP funds in the fields of power electronics and electric energy-related engineering.
The Landsmans previously established another career development professorship in EECS first held by Associate Professor David Perreault of LEES. Associate professors Karl Berggren and Luca Daniel have been named the current Landsman Career Development Professors.
LEES, an interdisciplinary research lab, provides the theoretical basis as well as the component, circuit and system technologies required to develop advanced electrical energy applications. Private financial support for the work that LEES performs is vital since much of the work that the lab does is at the forefront of innovation.
"This generous gift provides us the resources to initiate research into new areas and concepts that are not sufficiently developed to generate sponsored support," said LEES Director John Kassakian.
EECS Department Head Eric Grimson concurred. "At a time when traditional forms of financial support for this type of exciting research are disappearing, philanthropic gifts like these are especially critical to fulfilling MIT's mission to be at the cutting edge of both education and technology. We are deeply grateful to Dr. and Mrs. Landsman for their generosity."
A recognized expert in the field of power electronics, Emanuel Landsman formerly worked at Lincoln Laboratory, in the Space Communications Group and the Energy System Engineering Group. In 1981, he co-founded American Power Conversion Corp., a manufacturer of uninterruptible power supply products for computers and other electronic devices. Landsman has served as vice president and director of American Power Conversion since its inception. He is a recipient of the IEEE William E. Newell Award for Outstanding Achievement in Power Electronics.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 30, 2008 (download PDF).
