Weisong Shi, an internationally renowned expert in edge computing, autonomous driving and connected health and former interim chair of the Department of Computer Science at Wayne State University, has been named chair of the Department of Computer and Information Sciences (CIS) at the University of Delaware as of Oct. 1, 2022.

Shi joined the College of Engineering faculty in 2022 after serving as a computer science professor as well as the associate dean for research and graduate studies at Wayne State University’s College of Engineering. He received his undergraduate degree in computer science from Xidian University in China and his doctoral degree in computer engineering from the Institute of Computing Technology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China.

Shi, who holds dozens of academic honors and awards and has published over 250 journal articles and conference papers, said he is humbly honored and excited to join UD faculty, work with renowned professors and contribute to the University’s legacy.

“As one of the nation’s oldest computer and information sciences departments, UD’s CIS department is renowned for its high-quality programs and high-impact research,” he said. The faculty are acclaimed experts in their domain, more than 30% of tenured/tenured track are recipients of the prestigious NSF CAREER Award. In addition, the department has committed to building a diverse and inclusive environment, where more than 30% of faculty members are female — probably the highest among all computer science departments nationwide.”

He said the field will continue to be key in the transformation of society from financial technologies to transportation to health.

“To better serve this trend, I think the future of the field will be CS+X, meaning we need to train more computer scientists with a certain domain knowledge,” he said, noting the need for specialty training in areas such as bioinformatics and medicine, FinTech, mobility and smart manufacturing  in addition to core computer science courses.

Shi said he always loved to build things when he was younger, and soon realized he wanted to focus on computer systems that can benefit everyone. Since then, his research group has developed several widely used hardware and software technologies. Now he’s looking forward to expanding UD’s rich history of engineering and computer sciences, which has historically been home to several pioneers of program languages and computer architecture.

“I am extremely excited to join the department and have already received a warm welcome from colleagues at UD. I look forward to working with all the constituencies of the CIS community to bring the department to a Top 50 program in the nation, to connect our students with both fundamental and applied research opportunities, and build a strong CIS community to serve the economic development regionally and globally by leveraging UD’s strong commitment and strategic investment of the STAR campus,” he said.

Shi succeeds Rudolf “Rudi” Eigenmann, who joined UD faculty in 2017 and has served as interim department chair since 2021.

In addition to his recent leadership experience at Wayne State University, Shi also served as a National Science Foundation (NSF) program director and chair of two technical committees of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society. He is a fellow of IEEE, a distinguished member of the Association for Computing Machinery and has served in editorial roles for more than 20 academic journals and publications. Since 2003, he has secured more than 30 grants and contracts and mentored dozens of graduate and undergraduate students.