Biography: Anantha Chandrakasan

Anantha Chandrakasan is MIT’s provost and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He served as dean of MIT’s School of Engineering from July 2017 to June 2025 and as the Institute’s inaugural chief innovation and strategy officer from January 2024 to June 2025.

Reporting to MIT’s president, Provost Chandrakasan is the Institute’s chief academic and budget officer. As a senior officer of the Institute, he serves on the following boards and committees: Academic Council, MIT Building Committee (co-chair), MIT Enrollment Management Group, MIT Financial Scenarios Working Group (co-chair), MIT Gift Acceptance Committee (chair), MIT Gift Policy Committee, Ragon Institute Board, Schwarzman College of Computing External Advisory Council (ex officio), and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Board (co-chair).

In his role as provost, he also oversees the MIT Office of Innovation and Strategy (OIS) which includes the following initiatives: the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative (MIT HEALS), the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium (MGAIC), the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC), and the MIT Initiative for New Manufacturing (INM). He currently serves as head of MIT HEALS and MGAIC and co-chair of MITHIC. MIT OIS also includes the MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance for which he serves as co-chair.

Provost Chandrakasan is also the senior executive advisor to the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC) and serves as co-chair of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, the Tata-MIT Alliance, and the MIT-Takeda Program, all of which he founded.

Chandrakasan 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 September 1994 and served as the director of the MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories from July 2006 to June 2011. From July 2011 through June 2017, he served as head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS).

During his eight years as dean, Chandrakasan implemented various interdisciplinary programs, creating new models for how academia and industry work together to accelerate the pace of research. This resulted in the launch of several new initiatives and programs. 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. He founded and served as chair of the MCSC and the MIT AI Hardware Program, as well as co-chair of the MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Industry and Technology.

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 INM, and the MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance. In this role, he served as head of MIT HEALS and MGAIC, and co-chair of MITHIC. In 2025, he also served in an interim role overseeing the strategy and operations for MIT’s Climate Project.

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, 2003, 2nd edition), 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 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC).

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 (SIA) 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, in 2015 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, in 2019 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and in 2020 he was elected as fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).

Chandrakasan currently serves on the board of Natcast, a non-profit entity designed to operate the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC) by the U.S. Department of Commerce. He previously served on the boards of Analog Devices Inc., The Engine, and the Perkins School for the Blind.