Bir Bhanu, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering and the Marlan and Rosemary Bourns Endowed Presidential Chair in Engineering, has received the 2019-2020 Faculty Research Lecturer Award. The award recognizes a faculty member with a distinguished record of research and accomplishments and is the highest honor that the University of California, Riverside Academic Senate bestows. 

Bhanu is the founding director of the Center for Research in Intelligent Systems and founding chair of the electrical engineering department. He is the first member of the Bourns College of Engineering faculty to receive the award.

Bhanu is an internationally known and highly regarded researcher in the development of intelligent systems—systems that contribute both to understanding human intelligence and offer help in the development of practical applications to engineering and societal needs. One of his current research projects, for example, seeks to develop a framework and algorithms for a group of fixed and mobile sensors to improve disaster preparedness, response, and recovery scenarios. He holds 18 patents, has published over 150 articles in prestigious journals, and is the co-author of 12 books.

 He has received many awards in his areas of research, including being elected as a Fellow of AAAS, IEEE, SPIE, IAPR and AIMBE. He was a Senior Fellow at Honeywell Inc. before starting at UC Riverside.

In addition to his extraordinary research productivity and service to Bourns College of Engineering, Bhanu is an outstanding teacher and mentor. He received the Doctoral Dissertation Mentor Award in 2011.

Bhanu received his bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, BHU, Varanasi, India. He received a master’s degree in electronics engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India, and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned his doctoral degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California. He later studied business at UC Irvine, culminating in a master of business administration degree.