The Grainger College of Engineering
Siebel School of Computing and Data Science

Michael Faiman Professorship in Computer Science

Established by Douglas B. MacGregor (MS CS '80) to provide significant recognition of an outstanding faculty member, the Michael Faiman Professorship in Computer Science honors the late Professor Faiman for his service and dedication to students as manifested through exemplary teaching and guidance. After earning a PhD from Kyoto University in 1990, Dr. MacGregor became an executive with Data General Corporation and Dell, formed a multimillion dollar joint venture with Matsushita, and served on the faculty of the Harvard Business School. Originally established as a single Michael Faiman and Saburo Muroga Professorship in Computer Science, the Faiman Professorship was created in 2016 by splitting the original endowment.

Michael Faiman received his PhD in physics from the university of Illinois in 1966. He worked on the design and construction of ILLIAC II which was 100 times faster than ILLIAC I and spearheaded a new generation of computers. His research included graphical processing, device theory and circuit design. While on the CS faculty, he was noted for his teaching of CS 231 and for serving as director of graduate programs for 14 years.

Recipients