Meet The Leadership

Shih-Fu Chang is dean of Columbia Engineering, where he leads the education, research, and innovation mission.

At Columbia Engineering, Dean Chang is responsible for developing cross-disciplinary initiatives and industry collaborations; recruiting top faculty and students; and leading the development and implementation of the school’s strategy for diversity, equity, and inclusion. He has greatly contributed to the growth and advancement of the School, propelling it to be one of the top engineering programs in the nation. He plays a key role in the creation of the School’s guiding vision, Columbia Engineering for Humanity.

As one of the most influential experts in multimedia, computer vision and artificial intelligence, his research has led to spinoff companies and licensed technology in multimedia search. The image search tools developed by his group have been used by more than 200 law enforcement agencies in fighting online human trafficking crimes. He has launched AI tools for online disinformation detection and attribution.

Dean Chang is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Computing Machinery, and IEEE, and an elected member of Academia Sinica. He receives the Honorary Doctorate from the University of Amsterdam and the Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates. He is the inaugural director for Columbia Center of AI Technology in collaboration with Amazon.

He received his BS from National Taiwan University in 1985 and his PhD from the University of California-Berkeley in 1993.

Soulaymane Kachani, Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning, Columbia University; Professor, Columbia Engineering

Professor Kachani serves as Columbia University’s Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning. In this role, he oversees the development of Columbia University’s teaching and learning strategies, and supporting schools, colleges and departments in offering new and extending existing on-campus, online and hybrid courses and Boot Camps to audiences at Columbia and around the world.

Professor Kachani also serves as Senior Vice Dean of Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. He conducts research in the fields of dynamic pricing, revenue management, machine learning, logistics, supply chain management, algorithmic trading, statistical arbitrage, traffic flow modeling, and transportation analysis. He is an affiliated member of two centers of the Columbia Data Science Institute: The Financial and Business Analytics Center and the Foundations of Data Science Center. He is also an affiliated member of the Columbia Center for Financial Engineering and the Computational Optimization Research Center. He teaches courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the areas of quantitative corporate finance, industrial economics, operations consulting, logistics, pricing, and production and inventory planning.

At Class Day Ceremonies, Professor Kachani was honored with the Columbia Engineering School Alumni Association 2005 Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award for excellence in teaching and devotion to mentoring students, the 2007 Edward and Carole Kim Award for Faculty Involvement for going above and beyond the call of duty to foster student success, and the 2010 Janette and Armen Avanessians Diversity Award for outstanding performance in enhancing diversity in departmental, school and university Boot Camps at Columbia. He was also the recipient of the 2012 Egleston Distinguished Service Award for exceptional achievement, leadership and contributions to the excellence of Columbia University.

Prior to joining Columbia, Professor Kachani worked as a senior consultant in the Boston office of McKinsey & Company. He has continued to consult to McKinsey, to large corporations and to startups in the areas of pricing, supply chain management, operations, asset management, and corporate finance. Professor Kachani received a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds a Master of Science in Operations Research from MIT and a Diplôme d’Ingénieur in Applied Mathematics from École Centrale Paris.