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Since 2009, Dean and Distinguished Professor Krishnaswami “Hari” Srihari has led Watson College through a period of remarkable growth and unprecedented challenges. Srihari stepped down as dean on May 31, and he will return to the Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering faculty in fall 2025. Atul Kelkar, most recently the chair of Clemson University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, will start his tenure as dean this summer.

Earlier this year, Srihari looked back on his time as Watson’s leader.

Q: What do you see as the college’s biggest achievement during your tenure as the dean?

A: Watson has an excellent team of superb professionals, staff and faculty all working together for the betterment of our educational mission. Whether it is having impact on a first-year student or a doctoral student or a postdoctoral research associate, everybody in Watson is working toward a better educational environment for our principal customer.

While there are always things we can be doing better, we’re always going to be chasing “the rainbow.” Are we better off today than we were 15 years ago? The quantitative metrics and the qualitative outcomes all point in that direction.

Q: One big challenge during your tenure was the COVID-19 pandemic. How did you and the team keep Watson College on the right track? And what other challenges does Watson face?

A: COVID was an event without precedent in our lifetime. During that time, the Watson team came together and found solutions. There was no playbook for how to deal with COVID or the impact on education. From an online perspective, we had programs and systems in place, but not the quantity of classes that COVID required of us.

Watson was able to pivot and offer classes online in spring 2020, and then we got feedback from students so that we did a better job for fall 2020. That shows the resilience and innovative attitude of the Watson team. We relied on each other for support. We banked on each other’s academic knowledge, professional ideas and intellectual capital.

Similarly, if you look at our graduate growth, it is not the outcome of one person or two people. Many people in all our departments are working hard at it, from graduate directors and faculty to department chairs and our graduate recruiting team, to the dean, associate and assistant deans all working together with a single-minded mission. How do we enhance the quality of our graduate programs by attracting larger numbers of high-caliber students? How do we bring in a more diverse population?

One thing I’m very happy about is our focus on diversity. We were the first academic unit on campus to have our own director for diversity, equity and inclusive excellence, and the numbers show that we are doing much better in faculty, staff and students than 15 years ago. But diversity is another area where we have a lot more to do.

Those are just a couple of examples. We can talk about research. We can talk about scholarship. All of them show how the strength of the Watson team helped us to move forward.

Q: How important are the strong ties between Watson and its industrial partners for research and education, and how did you try to build those during your tenure?

A: Watson started 40-plus years ago thanks to the efforts of industry. The name Watson College stands testimony to that. But over the last four decades, the faculty and staff at Watson have developed the ability to work in a unique model with different segments of industry, from the service sector to the hospital sector, from the defense sector to commercial products, from local industry to international industry, working in different regions across the globe.

That’s helped us immensely, because we’re able to bring that knowledge back into the classroom. We can use case studies and practical applications to complement what you can learn from a textbook. It is not just theoretical knowledge, and that puts students in a better position when they enter the job market.

For example, everyone became familiar with supply-chain management during the pandemic when it took us a couple of months to get something like a washer and dryer. But we have been teaching that at Watson for 25 years.

Q: How important are alumni to Watson’s success?

Our alumni are very, very helpful by giving back to Watson, especially with networking, hiring and mentoring, whether they are local to Broome County, or they’re in Silicon Valley, Singapore or Mumbai. They help not only their colleagues and peers, but also our graduates. I hope our current students will carry on this tradition of helping others 20 years from now.

Q: Where do you think Watson goes in the next 10 to 20 years in terms of growth or focus? Are we setting a good trajectory now?

The short answer is yes. Watson has the next generation of economic leaders, the next generation of administrative leaders, the next generation of staff leaders, and the generation after that. We have an incredible resource in our people, and I am super-confident that for the next 20 years, the people who are here will ensure that Watson keeps growing as we keep striving for increased excellence.

This search for excellence is never going to stop. We’re never going to say, “Wow, we have climbed Mount Everest and have nowhere else to go.” It’s a pathway to continuous improvement. As technologies change and the landscape evolves, Watson and its people can make the right decisions at every step.

Q: What are you going to miss most about being the dean?

A: We have excellent people working on the Watson team, and I’ve had the opportunity to work shoulder to shoulder with them. As I transition to the next stage of my professional life, I think that will be the thing I miss the most. We have incredible individuals who work tirelessly each and every day for the betterment of Watson, for the betterment of our academic environment and for the betterment of the campus. They do things that go above and beyond without ever being asked, or without ever expecting to be thanked or congratulated. They’re not looking for kudos, but they keep doing it. That is the caliber of folks that we have here.

Q: Are you looking forward to transitioning back to a faculty role focused on research, teaching and mentoring?

A: Absolutely. Throughout my tenure as dean, I’ve had the opportunity to work with grad students, although not as much as I would have liked. I also love being in the classroom. It is something that I really want to do once again, because I haven’t taught a class since the fall of 2010.

And being a member of the faculty again, serving the campus, serving Watson, serving my home department in a different way and, most importantly, serving our students in a different way — I look forward to that as well.

A record of success

Dean Srihari spearheaded many accomplishments during his tenure. Here are some highlights.

• In 2020, the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science became the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering And Applied Science, reflecting both the consider- able growth since it was founded in 1983 as well as a forward- thinking view of what Watson College will be in the future.
• Watson’s graduate programs climbed to #111 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings for 2024, with industrial and systems engineering at #36, biomedical engineering at #69, mechanical engineering at #86 and computer science at #96.
• The $66 million Engineering and Science Building opened at the Innovative Technologies Complex in 2011. State-of-the-art, flexible research lab spaces are included among its 125,000 square feet.
• The Engineering Building, constructed in 1976, received a $22 million renovation from 2019 to 2021, updating technology and reorganizing space to accommodate current needs.
• The Watson Career and Alumni Connections Office, established in 2012, offers employment guidance specifically for engineering and computer science students, as well as fostering close ties with alumni all over the world.
• Watson was the first academic unit on campus to have a chief diversity officer, appointing a director of diversity programs and initiatives in 2014 and elevating the position to assistant dean in 2020.
• With support from corporations and donors as lead sponsors, the Watson College Scholars Program for economically challenged and underrepresented students was established, enrolling the first cohort in fall 2021.
• Watson Industrial Outreach has added 55 microcredentials through the Continuing Education program, delivering market-valued skills to more than 4,000 learners. Also, the Strategic Partnership for Industrial Insurgence (SPIR) celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2024.
• Fifteen faculty members have been elevated to SUNY Distinguished Professors since 2009. More than 10 percent of Watson faculty hold this rank.
• Since 2009, 22 Watson faculty members have earned prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Awards supporting early-career researchers.
• Thanks to an anonymous donor, Watson established its first named professorship — the George Klir Professor in Systems Science. Luis Rocha, PhD ’97, who studied under Klir, was the first appointed to the role in fall 2021.