Prem Kumar Named Interim Chair of Northwestern Electrical and Computer Engineering

Northwestern Engineering’s Prem Kumar has been named interim chair of the McCormick School of Engineering’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, effective September 1, 2026. Kumar takes leadership of the department from Randall Berry, the John A. Dever Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who will step down after completing two terms as chair.

Kumar will provide leadership while the school conducts a global search for the next John A. Dever Chair of the department. An expert in quantum communication, Kumar is a professor of electrical and computer engineering and the director of the Center for Photonic Communication and Computing.

“Following Randy’s highly successful tenure as chair of the department, we see an opportunity to further accelerate the rise of Electrical and Computer Engineering. This discipline is at an inflection point, with its importance to science, industry, and society growing at an unprecedented pace. This is our chance to invest decisively in the future by opening a search for a leader with the vision to elevate a high achieving department,” said Christopher Schuh, dean of Northwestern Engineering. “I am grateful to Prem for his willingness to provide leadership during this critical transition and his commitment to maintaining momentum for the department.”

In his research, Kumar seeks to make quantum computing scalable through robust, photonic-based communication between quantum devices. He is developing the next generation of fiber-based quantum networks, integrating quantum information into the existing classical fiber infrastructure to reap the exponential computational power and security of quantum communications.

A Northwestern faculty member since 1986, Kumar is a member of the Institute for Quantum Information Research and Engineering (INQUIRE) executive committee and a faculty member of the Applied Physics Graduate Program, a joint PhD program by the McCormick School of Engineering and the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, where he also holds a courtesy appointment in physics and astronomy. Kumar was named a Life Fellow Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2022. He is also a fellow of the Institute of Physics (2002), the American Physical Society (2000), Optica (formerly OSA) (1996), American Association for the Advancement of Science (2009), and the SPIE (2010). From 2013-2017, Kumar served as a program manager for the Defense Science Office at DARPA.

Kumar succeeds Randall Berry. Berry has held the position of John A. Dever Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering since 2019, when the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science was restructured into the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

During Berry’s tenure as chair, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has emphasized and expanded core research into AI engineering, computing and systems, intelligent systems, networks, and quantum and nanoengineering.

“Randy led the ECE department through a period of substantial change, establishing its identity and developing a cohesive vision following a major restructure. Under his leadership, the department has strengthened its foundation and expanded its ambitions, positioning it for continued growth and impact in a rapidly evolving field,” Schuh said. “I am deeply grateful for Randy’s commitment to the department and to Northwestern Engineering during a period of meaningful and transformational progress.”

A member of the Communications and Networking (Commnet) Laboratory, Berry’s research focuses on wireless communications and networking, including resource allocation in wireless networks, network economics, and wireless spectrum policy. Since 2021, Berry has collaborated with the US National Science Foundation SpectrumX, a multi-institutional initiative to transform the landscape of spectrum research, education, collaboration, and management as demands on commercial wireless networks grow. He is currently the research director of SpectrumX.

Berry joined Northwestern’s faculty in 2000 and serves as the director of Northwestern Engineering’s MS in Information Technology program. A fellow of the IEEE (class of 2014), Berry is also a member of the IEEE Communication Society, IEEE Information Theory Society, and Association for Computing Machinery.