Nov. 3, 2003

Tien Elected Fellow of AAAS

James Tien, the Yamada Corporation Professor at Rensselaer, has been awarded the distinction of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) fellow. Election as a fellow of AAAS is an honor bestowed upon members by their peers.

	Mark McCarty

"Professor Tien is well qualified to receive this honor,” said Bud Baeslack, dean of engineering. “His widely recognized scholarly contributions have been key to the application of decision sciences to the public arena. Jim is indeed one of Rensselaer's faculty who are changing the world we live in."

In 2001, Tien was elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the highest honors accorded an engineer. He is also chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Publication Products and Services Board.

Tien joined the Rensselaer faculty in 1977 in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering and was the department's acting chair from 1986 to 1987. In 1988, he became the founding chair of the Department of Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems. He twice served as acting dean of engineering at Rensselaer (1992-1994; 1998-1999).

Before joining the Rensselaer faculty, Tien worked at Bell Laboratories and at Rand Corporation, a nonprofit think tank headquartered in California. Tien earned his bachelor's in electrical engineering from Rensselaer in 1966 and received a Ph.D. in systems engineering and operations research from MIT in 1972.

According to AAAS, 348 members were awarded the honor of fellow this year because of their efforts to advance science or applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished. The new fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin at the Fellows Forum during the 2004 AAAS Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington, in February.