Miloš Žefran named interim associate dean for faculty affairs for College of Engineering
Miloš Žefran named interim associate dean for faculty affairs for College of Engineering Heading link
Professor Miloš Žefran has been named interim associate dean for faculty affairs for UIC’s College of Engineering. In this role, Žefran will help develop faculty-wide initiatives and coordinate among the College’s six academic departments on faculty hiring, promotion, career development, retention, and diversity.
Žefran joined UIC in 1999. His research interests are broadly in robotics and control, with a focus on human-robot interaction and autonomous systems. In his recent work, he develops algorithms that allow robots to interact with humans in tasks that involve direct physical contact, with the goal of enabling robots to assist older adults and their caregivers with activities of daily living. He won a National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2001 and has consistently received funding from the agency since then. Žefran also was one of the leaders of the College of Engineering’s Autonomous Vehicle Working Group, and in 2019 he co-developed a college-wide graduate course on autonomous vehicles.
He has served the university in a variety of roles: as director of graduate studies for the electrical and computer engineering department and as a member of the department’s advisory committee. He also completed several terms on the College’s executive committee and UIC’s senate executive committee and was his department’s facilitator for the Women in Science and Engineering System Transformation program, where he led anti-bias training for faculty search committees and hosted other anti-bias training presentations. These efforts were the basis of the current anti-bias training for faculty search committees university-wide, now conducted by the UIC Office of Access and Equity. Žefran is also active in the UIC faculty union.
The appointment is effective October 1.