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George Ligler named Dean’s Eminent Professor of the Practice in Biomedical Engineering

NC State Engineering Belltower
Dr. George T. Ligler
Dr. Ligler

Dr. George T. Ligler has been announced as the new Dean’s Eminent Professor of the Practice in Biomedical Engineering in the UNC/NC State Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME). Ligler will officially join the BME faculty and begin his position on August 16, 2018.

In his new half-time role, Ligler will assist in the development of the BME department through mentoring faculty and students; serving as a catalyst to initiate collaborative interactions within BME and between the department and industry; providing guidance in research, entrepreneurship, intellectual property, project management, contract negotiation, etc.; and will serve as an international spokesperson for the department.

A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Ligler is a recognized leader in the areas of systems integration/engineering and product management services. He joins the BME department after 29 years as proprietor of his consulting firm GTL Associates. In this role, he has provided consulting in telecommunications, computer system and hardware/software engineering for a wide range of applications, and information management services to more than 40 clients in the United States, Europe and Asia. Prior to forming GTL Associates, he was a project/research manager at Texas Instruments, director of engineering at the Burroughs Special Systems Division, president of Aydin Controls Division (computer graphics), and a division and group vice president at Computer Sciences Corporation. Additionally, he has served on BME’s Industrial Advisory Board since 2015.

Among his many accomplishments, he is a Rhodes Scholar and Woodrow Wilson Fellow; Furman University Alumni Hall of Fame member; invited participant in five panels/standing committees of the National Research Council between 1990 and 2017; recipient of the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) Achievement Award in 2006 and 2017; Secretary of Commerce appointee to a Census Expert Panel in 2008; and current chair, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Assessing Risks of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration into the National Airspace System.

Ligler holds a B.S. degree in mathematics from Furman University and M.Sc. and D.Phil. degrees in computation from the University of Oxford.