Dean - College of Engineering
Lawrence L. Gellerstedt, Jr. Chair in Bioengineering
Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar

Dean Giddens received all his degrees (BAE 1963, MSAE 1965, and Ph.D. 1966) from Georgia Tech and joined the Tech faculty in 1968, after two years in the aerospace industry. In 1992 he left his position as the Chair of Aerospace Engineering to serve as the Dean of the Whiting School of Engineering and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University until 1997. In 1997, Giddens rejoined Georgia Tech to establish the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, a joint department between Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering and Emory University’s School of Medicine. He served as the founding Chair until July 2002, when he became the Dean of the College of Engineering.
Dr. Giddens is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), ASEE, Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), Big 10+ Deans Council, a founding Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and Fellow of the American Heart Association and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He received the H.R. Lissner Award from ASME in 1993 and was the ASME Thurston Lecturer in 1996. Giddens has served in a variety of professional activities involving engineering education and biomedical research. He is currently on the National Advisory Council of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of NIH, chair of the ASEE Engineering Deans Council, and Secretary of the Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC) Board of Directors. He is the author of over 300 publications, book chapters and presentations, and continues an active research program in biomedical engineering. Dean Giddens recently chaired an NAE project that developed a report, “Changing the Conversation: Messages for Improving the Public Understanding of Engineering.” In his role as dean, Giddens continues to be active in various issues associated with engineering education and diversity in engineering.