BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Leonard A. Ferrari
Research Professor, ECE (Emeritus), University of California
Computer Science & Engineering Department, UC Santa Cruz
UC CITRIS Center
After graduation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963, Dr. Ferrari was employed in Cambridge, Massachusetts for 3-4 years as a research assistant to Dr. Edwin Land, the founder and CEO of Polaroid Corporation in his personal research laboratory. He completed an MS ECE Degree at Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts in 1967. In 1968, he was asked to join Bell & Howell’s (B&H) Research Lab as a Founding Director of the Lab’s Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Division. In that position, he often worked directly under B&H’s CEO, Peter G. Peterson before Mr. Peterson left to become U.S. Secretary of Commerce in the early 1970’s.
Dr. Ferrari left industry in 1975, after a valuable 10+ years’ experience and having produced ~30 technical patents to pursue a doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering (EE) at UC Irvine (UCI). After completing the PhD degree, Dr. Ferrari was retained by UCI as a faculty member and became a Professor in the Departments of Electrical Engineering, Radiological Sciences and Computer Science. As a university professor, he enjoyed a successful career in both the engineering sciences and academic administration that spanned some 40 years at three outstanding U.S. universities: University of California, Irvine (UCI); Virginia Tech, Blacksburg (VT); and the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey (NPS). Dr. Ferrari innovated solutions to many challenging technical problems in the fields of electrical & computer engineering, medical diagnostics and mathematics and published ~100 papers in refereed journals and conferences before moving into nearly full time academic administration. He received the IEEE Fellow Award during his academic career for contributions to Research and Education in Electrical & Computer Engineering. In 2012, he was awarded the U.S. Congress recognized Ellis Island Medal of Honor for contributions to U.S. education and research.
As a Professor of Electrical Engineering at UC Irvine Dr. Ferrari served as Department Chair for 3 years. While at UCI, Dr. Ferrari created and directed the NSF Center for High Speed Image Processing and initiated the UCI undergraduate and graduate Computer Engineering degree programs. He established UCI's Biomedical Engineering Program and was awarded the UCI Engineering Outstanding Research Award in 1990. He served as Engineering's Associate Dean of Research with responsibility for the SOE's graduate program from 1993-95. His research in radiological sciences provided many improvements in the early developent of medical ultrasound technology and was supported by the National Institutes of Health and Philips Ultrasound Corporation.
Dr. Ferrari moved to Viginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VT) in 1995 as Electrical Engineering Department Head. Under his five year leadership, the ECE Department grew its computer engineering program and its ECE research program from $5M/yr. to over $25M/yr., which helped the VT SOE move from a national ranking of 40th in the Nation to a Top 20 position. In the year 2000 he was apointed as Virginia Tech's Vice Provost for Special initiatives and moved from Blacksburg, VA to Alexandria, VA where he created the VT Alexndria Research Institute. He was also given an appointment in 2000 as a Special Assistant to Virginia's Governor Mark Warner. During the next three years Dr. Ferrari created a number of new academic - research programs for Virginia Tech and the Commonwealth of Virginia. These included the Virginia Microelectronics Consortium, The Virginia Tech Alexandria Research Institute, The Wake Forest University-Virginia Tech Joint Biomedical Engineering Program, The Virginia Tech Personal Rapid Transit Virtual Corporation academic program and several high school summer courses and undergraduate programs focused on women in computing at Virginia Tech. Dr. Ferrari left VT in 2003 to join the USN Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), Monterey.
At NPS, Dr. Ferrari served as Dean of Research from 2003-2006, Provost from 2006-12 and Acting President in 2006-07. While Provost of the US Naval Postgraduate School, he expanded the development of education and research curricula and programs supporting national and global security, sustainable systems and international collaborations in support of the USN’s Strategic Plan, which included conflict avoidance. He worked closely with the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs in the Obama administration and the DoD Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary, Policy. He founded the Global Challenges Forum (GCF) in Geneva Switzerland in 2009, which was hosted annually by The Ambassador, U.S. Mission, Geneva, Switzerland. Over a four-year period, the GCF was attended by hundreds of representatives from NGOs, universities, national defense organizations and many of the leaders of U.N. agencies based in Europe. The GSF founded the International Transformative Education Forum (TEF), which hosted an annual meeting and local workshops attended by some of the world’s most innovative educational practitioners and theorists.
The GSF also led to the creation of an interdisciplinary Global Public Policy Group, a graduate education program for active duty and reserve officers of the U.S. Military and International Allies at the Naval Postgraduate School. The Master’s Degree Program examined problems in military civil affairs, global economics, population migration, climate change and several other global challenges, which could only be addressed through international cooperation. During his tenure as NPS Dean of Research and then NPS Provost, research and sponsored program funding grew from $50M/year to more than $200M per year under the guidance and approval of the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO).
Dr. Ferrari stepped down as Provost at NPS in 2012, having been offered a three year (2013-2016), USN assignment at the Office of Naval Research Global (ONRG) as an Associate Director in London, UK. He was based in ONRG’s London, UK Office from 2013-2016. Dr. Ferrari provided research funding and interacted with 30 of the EU’s top researchers in more than a dozen countries, He also helped support 25 technical international conferences and workshops in fields spanning Information Systems, Weather Forecasting, Climate Change, Renewable Energy, Cyber Security, Predictive Analytics, Wireless Communications, Medical Diagnostics and High-speed, Portable DNA Analysis. He also served as the U.S. voting member on the NATO Information Systems Technology Panel from 2013-2017. Dr. Ferrari retired from government service in February 2017 having contributed to U.S. industry, three outstanding American universities, the U.S. Department of Defense, NATO and the international academic community over a career that began in 1963.
He accepted a position as a Research Professor (UC Emeritus) of Computer Science & Engineering and the CITRIS Center at UC Santa Cruz in 2018. He is currently working on two projects; 1) Improved efficiency data compression for video images and computer graphics; and 2) as a member of UC Solar, a UC multicampus research institute, the development of US and international, multi-disciplinary network of universities, research organizations, industry, and research programs focused on replacement of carbon based energy and transportation systems by efficient, clean, renewable energy power and transportation systems for the mitigation of global warming.
Dr. Ferrari became a Fellow of the Schumacher Research Institute, Bristol, UK in 2020.