Dwyer named CSE’s interim department chair

Matthew Dwyer, Henson Professor with the UNL Department of Computer Science and Engineering, became interim chair July 1. Steve Goddard, CSE department chair, became the interim dean of UNL’s College of Arts & Sciences.

Dwyer received a bachelor of science in electrical engineering in 1985 from the University of Rochester. He worked for six years as a senior engineer with Intermetrics Inc., developing compilers and software for safety-critical embedded systems. His interests in verification and validation of embedded systems software encouraged him to complete a Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1995. Dwyer joined UNL in 2004. He was named a Distinguished Scientist by the ACM in 2007 and a Fellow by the IEEE in 2012.

Goddard was appointed to serve as Arts & Sciences interim dean by Ellen Weissinger, senior vice chancellor for Academic Affairs. A member of UNL's faculty since 1998, Goddard served as chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering since August 2008. He has been a member of the Chancellor's Commission on the Status of Women, the ADVANCE-Nebraska Faculty Committee, the UNL Faculty Senate's Intercollegiate Athletics Committee and recently led a campuswide task force to study the potential role and impact of MOOCs -- massive online open courses -- at UNL.

Before joining UNL, Goddard worked in the computer industry for 13 years, including nine as president of his own company. A Minnesota native, he received a bachelor of arts degree in computer science and mathematics from the University of Minnesota in 1985 and his master's and doctoral degrees in computer science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.