ANU has announced a major 10-year expansion of its capacity and capability in engineering and computer science to meet the major technology challenges of the 21st Century.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt said the expansion would transform the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science and strengthen the capacity of ANU to respond to major challenges around the rising power of technology.
"By building on our capacity in engineering and computer science and attracting new talent, particularly women, ANU can drive and deliver Australia's response to our changing world," Professor Schmidt said.
"This expansion is being led by our outstanding Dean of the ANU College Engineering and Computer Science, Elanor Huntington, who is a real visionary on how engineering intersects with other disciplines to transform the world."
The expansion will see new flagship STEM research and education programs for Australia.
The College will create new disciplinary foci, led by outstanding new talent, delivering cutting-edge research and education, and establishing a new role for engineering and computing at the core of ANU interdisciplinary discovery and impact in the world.
Under the expansion, ANU will be seeking outstanding talent from around the world, with a focus on championing diversity and inclusion in engineering and computer science.
This will build on the high-profile appointment of Professor Genevieve Bell as the inaugural ANU Vice-Chancellor's Entrepreneurial Fellow.
"I am particularly delighted that Professor Bell, one of the world's foremost technologists and public intellectuals, will lead the way in breaking new interdisciplinary ground as part of the expanded College," said Professor Schmidt.
Professor Bell is a recognised world leader in the ethnographic approach to the development, shaping and use of technology, and is a former Vice President at Intel.
Professor Schmidt said she is uniquely qualified to put ANU at the forefront of defining the role of technology in society in the 21st Century.
Professor Huntington said the University had an exciting new vision for engineering and computer science.
"We will develop people who find and solve problems that transform the way that science and technology are integrated with communities and society in the 21st Century," Professor Huntington said.
"We'll shortly be announcing a first of a series of ANU Innovation Institutes that will take inventive approaches to tackling complex problems."
Professor Bell will deliver a public lecture on Monday 4 September, when she will outline her vision for the future in a lecture called 'Managing the machines: building a new applied science for the 21st century'.
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