Nariman Farvardin
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Nariman Farvardin is President at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. He was appointed the seventh president of the Institute in January 2011. Dr. Farvardin joined Stevens from the University of Maryland, where he was a member of the faculty for twenty-seven years. He served as that institution’s Acting President for two months in 2010, during his tenure as Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, positions he held since 2007. Dr. Farvardin is an accomplished researcher in the areas of information theory and coding, multimedia signal compression and transmission, high-speed networks, and wireless networks. Among his accomplishments as Provost was spearheading the development and implementation of the University's ambitious strategic plan, Transforming Maryland: Higher Expectations.
From 1994 to 2000 Dr. Farvardin served as Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where he was Professor. He was appointed Dean of the A. James Clark School of Engineering in 2000.
Dr. Farvardin has made significant contributions to a number of communications standards and practical systems in data communication, image and video compression, and voice coding in wireless applications. A fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Dr. Farvardin holds seven U.S. patents in data communication, image coding, and wireless communication, and has co-authored more than 150 technical papers in journals and conference proceedings. He served multi-year terms as associate editor for two IEEE publications: Transactions on Communications, from 1986 to 1990, and Transactions on Information Theory, from 1992 to 1995.
A passionate advocate of technological innovation, Dr. Farvardin has served on the boards of several companies and educational non-profit organizations. He was chosen by the Governor of Maryland to serve on the state’s task forces for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and Nano-biotechnology, and he chaired the University System of Maryland’s Task Force on Cyber-security.
Dr. Farvardin co-founded Zagros Networks, a venture-funded fabless semiconductor company and NovaTherm Technologies, a high-tech start-up company that develops technologies to improve the energy efficiency of buildings.
In recognition of his contributions to technology education and his support of innovation and entrepreneurship, Dr. Farvardin was featured in The Washington Post as one of the “Five to Watch” in 2003. Among his honors are the National Science Foundation's Presidential Young Investigator Award, the George Corcoran Award for Outstanding Contributions to Electrical Engineering Education, and the University of Maryland’s Invention of the Year Award in Information Sciences.
Nariman Farvardin was born in Tehran, Iran and grew up in Kermanshah. He attended the Sharif University of Technology, and then moved to the United States. Dr. Farvardin earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, in 1979, 1980, and 1983, respectively. He currently lives in Hoboken, New Jersey, with his wife, Hoveida, and daughter, Tandice, who is a senior at Georgetown University.
