Melsa New Dean Of Engineering


by Skip Derra
James L. Melsa, who has extensive experience in industry and 
academia and is a graduate of Iowa State, has been named dean 
of the College of Engineering. The appointment of Melsa, vice 
president of strategic quality and process management at 
Tellabs Inc., Lisle, Ill., is subject to final approval by 
the State Board of Regents on Feb. 15.

"Jim Melsa will be an outstanding leader in the College of 
Engineering," said President Martin Jischke. "His experiences 
in both teaching and research, and in higher education and 
industry give him the understanding necessary to guide one of 
the top engineering schools in the country."

"Jim emerged as the consensus choice of the students, faculty 
and staff, the departmental executive officers, the 
Engineering Advisory Committee, deans and other 
administrators who interacted with him during his visits," 
said Provost John Kozak. "The enthusiasm that he generated in 
the interviewing process was truly remarkable, and I believe 
it will energize a new era of progress for the College of 
Engineering at Iowa State."

Melsa, a native of Omaha, will be ISU's seventh engineering 
dean. 

He has been at Tellabs, a telecommunications equipment 
manufacturer, since 1984. While at Tellabs, Melsa was 
instrumental in setting up the company's first research 
organization and later became vice president for research and 
development, assuming responsibility for all research and new 
product development at Tellabs. 

Before he joined Tellabs, Melsa had 25 years of experience in 
academia. From 1973 to 1984 he was professor and chair of 
electrical engineering at the University of Notre Dame, South 
Bend, Ind. Prior to that, he was professor of information and 
control sciences at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, 
Tex., and an assistant professor of electrical engineering at 
the University of Arizona, Tucson. Melsa is a fellow in the 
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (1978) and 
was chosen as an Outstanding Educator in America (1972). 

Melsa's research has focused on the areas of speech encoding 
and digital signal processing. He has written more than 
100 papers and written or co-written 11 books on these 
topics. 

Melsa received his B.S. degree  in electrical engineering 
from Iowa State (1960) and his M.S. (1962) and Ph.D. (1965) 
degrees from the University of Arizona, Tucson. 

Melsa succeeds David Kao, who resigned as engineering dean 
effective July 1, 1994. Kao currently holds the Glenn Murphy 
professorship in civil and construction engineering at Iowa 
State. George Burnet has served as interim dean since last 
July. 

Melsa begins his new post on July 1.

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contact:  Skip Derra, (515) 294-4917
updated:  2-10-95