Three new CSE department heads begin in 2025-26

They bring a wealth of academic, research, and leadership abilities

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (06/30/2025)—University of Minnesota Twin Cities College of Science and Engineering Dean Andrew Alleyne has named three new department heads in the college. Two are long-time University of Minnesota faculty and the third comes from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. All three bring a wealth of academic, research, and leadership abilities to their departments.

Department of Biomedical Engineering

Professor Jonathan Sachs has been appointed as the new head for the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Sachs starts his five-year term on July 1, 2025.

Sachs joined the University of Minnesota faculty in 2006. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering in 2024.

His research efforts focus on innovative discoveries at the molecular scale. His work combines experimental biophysics and cell biology with sophisticated computational modeling using some of the world’s fastest supercomputers to explain how molecules malfunction in neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer's, and inflammatory diseases like arthritis. He and his students use that new knowledge to develop cutting-edge approaches to discover new therapeutic strategies, including small molecule drug discovery and protein engineering.

Sachs has served in several leadership roles within his research discipline, including editor-in-chief of Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology and head of the Legislative Relations Working Group for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). In addition, he has held several leadership positions at the University, including head of the College of Science and Engineering Consultative Committee, a member of the Department of Biomedical Engineering Head Advisory Committee, and a member of several awards and search committees.

Sachs received his bachelor’s degree in mathematical biochemistry from the University of Michigan and his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the National Institutes of Health in molecular biophysics at Yale University, where he developed expertise in experimental biophysics and biochemistry for the study of membrane proteins.

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Professor Loren Terveen has been appointed as the new head for the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CS&E) at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Terveen starts his five-year term on July 1, 2025. 

Terveen joined the University of Minnesota faculty in 2002 after an extensive technical research career at AT&T Labs. He was named a Distinguished McKnight University Professor in 2017 and previously served as the Associate Department Head from 2019 to 2025.

His research areas are social computing, human-computer interaction, and intelligent systems. He focuses on issues such as detecting and addressing bias in intelligent systems, methods for doing ethical research with online communities, and integrating intelligent systems into peer production systems like Wikipedia.

Terveen has received numerous awards, including being named a Distinguished Scientist by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer–Human Interaction (SIGCHI) Lifetime Service Award winner. At the University, he has served on the College of Science and Engineering Consultative Committee and the Honors and Awards Committee. 

Terveen received his bachelor’s degree in computer science, mathematics, and history from the University of South Dakota then earned a master’s and Ph.D. in computer sciences from the University of Texas.

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Professor Geir Dullerud has been appointed as the new head for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Dullerud starts his five-year term on Aug. 25, 2025.

Dullerud joins the University of Minnesota Twin Cities from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where he is a W. Grafton and Lillian B. Wilkins Professor in Mechanical Engineering. He started at UIUC in 1998 as an assistant professor. Prior to that, he was an assistant professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada and a research fellow and lecturer at California Institute of Technology.

His areas of current research interest include convex optimization and machine learning in control, cyber-physical system security, cooperative robotics, stochastic simulation, and hybrid dynamical systems. He is particularly interested in networked, distributed and mobile cyber-physical settings.

He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He served as senior editor of IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (TAC) and served on several professional organization committees. At the University of Illinois, he served on dozens of committees, including the campus awards committee, faculty senate, and as chair of the Diversity Committee. He also served as director of the Center for Autonomy.

Dullerud received his bachelor’s in engineering science and master’s in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in information engineering from Cambridge University.