Department Chair: 1996-2003
Subrahmanyam S. “Mani” Venkata joined Iowa State as chair for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering after working for 25 years combined at the University of Washington, West Virginia University, and the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.
In 1996, he was named the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Power Engineering Society’s Outstanding Power Engineering Educator. In 2003, he was appointed to the Palmer Chair in Electrical Engineering in recognition of his scholarship in power systems. In 2004, Venkata left Iowa State to become dean of Clarkson University’s Wallace H. Coulter School of Engineering. He left that position in 2005 to become vice president and executive consultant for KEMA, a world-renowned business and technical consulting firm. He currently serves as president of Venkata Consulting Solutions and a subconsultant for KEMA. In 2008, he joined the faculty at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Venkata is an IEEE Fellow and recipient of IEEE’s Third Millennium Medal (2000). Venkata has conducted research, design, and development for more than 20 power utilities and related industries throughout the past 38 years. Additionally, he has published and/or presented more than 300 publications in refereed journals and conference proceedings, and is coauthor of Introduction to Electric Energy Systems (1987).
He obtained his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Andhra University in India, master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, and PhD from the University of South Carolina (1971).