Farnam Jahanian
President, Henry L. Hillman President's Chair
Farnam Jahanian is the 10th president of Carnegie Mellon University, where he holds the Henry L. Hillman President's Chair. He is currently serving in his second five-year term at the university's helm and previously held posts as Carnegie Mellon's provost and chief academic officer and vice president for research.
A nationally recognized computer scientist, entrepreneur, public servant and academic leader, Jahanian has advanced a number of key priorities at the university and in higher education more broadly.
At CMU, Jahanian has spearheaded efforts to enhance the overall student experience, with a focus on holistic health and wellbeing, student success and inclusion. From 2017 to 2021, Carnegie Mellon's undergraduate applicant count increased by approximately 60%, and enrollment sits two to three times above the national average.
As president, Jahanian has led the most ambitious expansion of campus infrastructure in CMU's history, including the renovation of education and learning spaces, a re-envisioning of the residential experience, and the addition of a state-of-the-art maker ecosystem. He has also prioritized expanding partnerships that advance the university's research mission and saw CMU reach—ahead of schedule—the $2B mark in an ongoing fundraising campaign, which is the largest in the institution's history.
Today, Jahanian drives important conversations and initiatives aimed at helping higher education adapt to the future of work in the age of automation and artificial intelligence and elevating the role of universities in expanding the footprint of U.S. innovation. He has testified before Congress on a broad range of topics, including cybersecurity, next generation computing and big data analytics and is an active advocate for how basic research can be uniquely central to an innovation ecosystem that drives global competitiveness and addresses national priorities.
Beyond these successes, Jahanian holds three faculty appointments—in Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science (Computer Science), the College of Engineering (Electical and Computer Engineering) and the H. John Heinz III College of Information Systems and Public Policy.
Jahanian joined CMU as vice president for research in 2014, where he nurtured excellence in research, scholarship and creative activities. In his role as the university’s provost and chief academic officer–a position he held from May 2015 to June 2017–Jahanian had broad responsibility for leading CMU’s schools, colleges, institutes and campuses and was a significant driver of long-range institutional and academic planning and implementation.
Prior to CMU, Jahanian led the National Science Foundation Directorate for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) from 2011 to 2014. With a budget of over $900 million, CISE was–and is–home to a number of programs and initiatives focused on advancing research and cyber infrastructure, fostering broad interdisciplinary collaborations, and contributing to the development of a computing and information technology workforce. During this time, Jahanian also served as co-chair of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council Committee on Technology, providing coordination and oversight of research and development activities of 17 government agencies.
From 1993 to 2014, Jahanian was on faculty at the University of Michigan, where he held the Edward S. Davidson Collegiate Professorship in the College of Engineering. He also served as chair for Computer Science and Engineering from 2007 to 2011 and director of the Software Systems Laboratory from 1997 to 2000. In 2001, he co-founded a software company called Arbor Networks and served as its president and chief scientist until 2004 and chairman until the company’s acquisition in 2010. Prior to this, he held research and management positions at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center.
A sought-after thought leader, Jahanian has served on dozens of national, state and regional advisory boards and panels. Recent appointments include joining President Joseph Biden’s President’s Export Council (2023), Pennsylvania Governor-elect Josh Shapiro’s transition team (2022) and chairing the National Research Council’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (2015 to 2021). He is also active with the World Economic Forum, serving as vice chair of the Global University Leaders Forum and as a member of the Global Network Advisory Board for the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution as well as the Centre’s Internet of Things Council.
Beyond these engagements, Jahanian serves on the board of directors for organizations like Highmark Health and the Allegheny Conference on Community Development. He also sits on the executive committee of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, is a trustee of the Dietrich Foundation and serves as co-chair of the Southwestern Pennsylvania New Economy Collaborative, which is the governing board for implementing the coalition’s $62.7M Build Back Better Regional Challenge Grant.
Jahanian has earned numerous awards over his career to date, including a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (1995), University of Michigan College of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award (1998), Amoco Teaching Award (2000), DARPA Innovation Award (2000), EECS Outstanding Faculty Achievement Award (2005), the State of Michigan Governor’s University Award for Commercialization Excellence (2005) and the ACM SIGCOMM Test of Time Award (2008 and 2021). In 2015, He also earned the Computing Research Association’s Distinguished Service Award (2015) and was honored in Carnegie Corporation of New York’s “Great Immigrants — The Pride of America” campaign (2016).
The author of over 100 published research papers, Jahanian is a celebrated scholar on a number of topics, including distributed computing, network security and network protocols and architectures. His research has been supported by a number of major sponsors, including the NSF, DHS, DARPA, NSA, ONR as well as companies like Cisco, Intel, Google, Boeing, VeriSign, Hitachi, Hewlett-Packard and IBM.
Jahanian holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.