We are pleased to announce that Professor Arthur Kramer has accepted the position of Director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology effective June 1, 2010, pending approval of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Art has been a member of our campus since 1979 when he arrived here as a Graduate Research Assistant in the Cognitive Psychophysiology Laboratory. Art received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1984 and became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and in the Institute of Aviation shortly thereafter. He received the Swanlund Chair in 2007. During his time on campus, Art has served as the group leader of the Human Perception and Performance group at the Beckman Institute, the Co-Chair of the Human-Computer Intelligent Interaction research theme at the Beckman Institute, Co-Director of the NIH Center for Healthy Minds at Illinois, and the Director of the Biomedical Imaging Center at Illinois.  His work has received funding from the Office of Naval Research, the National Institute on Aging, the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the General Motors Corporation.  We are confident that Art will continue to make outstanding scholarly contributions to our campus while he serves in this pivotal leadership role.

We would like to express sincere thanks to Professor M. Tamer Başar for his leadership during a critical period of transition, which saw a celebration of Beckman’s twenty years of interdisciplinary research on the Illinois campus, numerous successful multidisciplinary research proposals, and a strategic retreat to chart Beckman’s future course. 

Also, on behalf of the campus, we hope that you will join us in expressing thanks to the search committee, led by Gene Robinson, which vetted a field of outstanding candidates and highlighted Art’s strengths as a researcher and leader. 

We are enthusiastic about Art’s vision for expanding Beckman Institute programs in the years to come, and we look forward to working with him to increase the Beckman Institute’s national and international visibility as a leading research center.  Please join us in welcoming Art as Director.

Ravi Iyer

Vice Chancellor for Research (Interim)

Richard Wheeler

Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (Interim)