Meet the Dean

Steve Halperin, Ph.D. Cornell, 1970, has served as Dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park since 1999. Under his leadership, the College has made aggressive strides and ranks comfortably among the top 10 public research universities in America in its major disciplines of physics, mathematics and computer science. Annual research income in the College has more than doubled to $114M, new educational programs (including a graduate program in biophysics and the College’s first two professional masters programs) have been implemented, ten endowed professorships have been established, and large-scale active partnerships with other universities and federal laboratories like NASA, NIST and NOAA continue to develop. These include co-operative MOU’s with the Goddard Space Flight Center, with NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction and with the National Institute for Standards and Technology, the last establishing the Joint Quantum Institute on the campus. Finally, during his tenure the University has constructed the $10M Computer Science Instructional Center and the State government has approved the construction of the Physical Sciences Complex whose first phase (approximately $100M) is currently in design.

Dr. Halperin chaired the Department of Mathematics at the University of Toronto, served there as acting Vice President for Research and International Relations and as member of the Executive Committee of the University’s Governing Council. He led the successful proposal for the creation of the $14M Canadian Network of Centers of Excellence in Mathematics (MITACS), served as the first program leader, and was a founding member of the Fields Institute for Research in the Mathematical Sciences.

Dr. Halperin is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and is one of the initial permanent Fellows of the Fields Institute. He was awarded the Jeffery-Williams Lectureship of the Canadian Mathematical Society and was made Chevallier de l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques by the French government.

Dr. Halperin remains an active research mathematician, and is a recognized authority in his research area of rational homotopy theory and its applications, collaborating with mathematicians from around the world. He has held visiting positions in Belgium, France, Germany and Sweden, has published 4 books (most recently a 530 page monograph completed during his tenure as dean), has over 80 refereed publications, and has delivered more than 130 invited lectures and seminars around the world.