Stanford Engineering's Jim Plummer to be awarded IEEE Founders Medal

Jim Plummer, a former dean of Stanford Engineering and current member of its electrical engineering faculty, will receive the 2015 IEEE Founders Medal, joining a select group of innovators who have been similarly honored during the past six decades.

IEEE, which traces its roots to the rise of telegraphy and radio, is today the world's largest technical professional society of engineers, scientists and industrial leaders.

In its citation, IEEE lauded Plummer for "leadership in the creation and support of innovative, interdisciplinary and globally focused education and research programs."

"A world-class researcher and an extraordinary educator, Jim Plummer is the prototypical 21st century engineer," said Stanford President John L. Hennessy. "Consultative and entrepreneurial, Jim looks beyond the immediate opportunity to develop innovative and sustainable solutions. Under his leadership, Stanford's School of Engineering really embraced interdisciplinary collaboration across campus and beyond the university. I congratulate him on this well-deserved honor."

Earlier Founders Medal recipients include radio and television pioneer David Sarnoff (1953), David Packard and William Hewlett, cofounders of the company that bears their names (1973), Akio Morita, the legendary leader of Sony Corporation (1994) and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt (2014).

Frederick E. Terman, the former Stanford Engineering dean who helped create Silicon Valley, received the honor in 1963.

Plummer became dean of Stanford Engineering in 1999 and stepped down in September to resume his faculty post as the John M. Fluke Professor of Electrical Engineering.

During his 15 years as dean, the longest such tenure in Stanford Engineering history, Plummer worked with faculty in the school's nine departments to modernize engineering curricula and define what is now widely called the T-shaped engineer – the problem solver with the deep technical skills and broad social awareness needed to tackle the world's biggest challenges.

Under Plummer's leadership, the percentage of Stanford undergraduates choosing engineering majors increased from a historical average of 20 percent to almost 35 percent of the student body, with much of the increase occurring in computer science, product design and other new programs such as bioengineering.

IEEE awards the Founders Medal to those who exemplify professional leadership and service. In some years no medal is awarded.

Plummer, who will receive his award at IEEE's Honors Ceremony next summer, will be the fourth former Stanford Engineering dean to receive the Founders Medal.

In addition to Terman, IEEE bestowed the 2011 Founders Medal on James F. Gibbons, a professor of electrical engineering who served as dean from 1984 to 1996. His accomplishments included bringing the Computer Science Department into the School of Engineering.

Joseph M. Pettit, who served as dean of Stanford Engineering from 1958 until 1972 when he became president of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, received the Founders Medal in 1983, three years before his death at age 70.