Biography
Dr. Timothy M. Pinkston
George Pfleger Chaired Professor of Electrical
and Computer Engineering
Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089
Term: 02/01/2022 - 01/30/2025
Timothy M. Pinkston is the George Pfleger Chaired Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and he also serves as Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs, in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California. He earned his Bachelor’s (’85) degree from The Ohio State University (OSU) and his Master’s (’86) and Ph.D. (’93) degrees from Stanford University, all in Electrical Engineering. Prior to joining USC in 1993, he was a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories, a Hughes Doctoral Fellow at Hughes Research Laboratory, and a visiting research at IBM T.J. Watson Research Laboratory.
Among his many professional service and leadership contributions to the computing field, Pinkston served as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the Computer Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate from 2005-2008. He served as the Program Director for Computer Systems Architecture (2006-2007) in the Software-Hardware Foundations (SHF) cluster of CISE’s Division of Computing and Communications Foundations. He also served as the founding Lead Program Director of CISE’s Expeditions in Computing Program in its inaugural year (2008).
An accomplished researcher in computer systems architecture specializing in interconnection networks and router architecture design, Pinkston is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). He also has received prominent national awards, including an NSF Minority Research Initiation Award and an NSF CAREER Award. He is the proud recipient of a Distinguished Alumnus Award for Academic Excellence from OSU’s College of Engineering.