Stella Batalama serves as the Dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University since August 2017. She served as the Chair of the Electrical Engineering Department of the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, from 2010 to 2017 and as the Associate Dean for Research of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences from 2009 to 2011. From 2003 to 2004, she was the Acting Director of the Air Force Research Laboratory Center for Integrated Transmission and Exploitation, Rome NY, USA. Her research interests include cognitive and cooperative communications and networks, multimedia security and data hiding, underwater signal processing, communications and networks. She has published over 190 papers in scientific journals and conference proceedings in her research field. She was a recipient of the 2015 SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research and served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Communications Letters (2000–2005) and the IEEE Transactions of Communications (2002–2008).

At Florida Atlantic Dr. Batalama was able to transform the College of Engineering and Computer Science and position it at the forefront of education and R&D statewide, nationally, and internationally, in artificial intelligence and connected autonomy in air, on ground, undersea and within the human body. The FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science is the first in FL to offer an MS degree in AI and has recently received $3.4M from the National Science Foundation for student training in AI and Data Science with a large part of the funds directed to low income students. She established the Florida Atlantic Research Center for Connected Autonomy and AI -the official opening is scheduled on March 4- and with a generous philanthropic donation she is completing a research and education Fab Lab that will be available to the whole university and broader community. Within 3 years she led a 115% growth in sponsored research and a 480% growth in student internships aiming for at least 1 internship experience for every college graduate. Her College was recently recognized by the American Association of Engineering Education at the highest level as one of the Nation’s leading Colleges in inclusive excellence.

Dr. Batalama received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia and her undergraduate degree in computer science and engineering from the University of Patras in Greece. She also completed the Program for Leadership Development at Harvard Business School.

Learn More