USC Viterbi School of Engineering

USC Viterbi School Of Engineering

The Viterbi School of Engineering (formerly the USC School of Engineering) is located at the University of Southern California in the United States. It was renamed following a $52 million donation by Andrew Viterbi. The USC Viterbi School of Engineering celebrated its 100th birthday in conjunction with the university's 125th birthday.

With over $135 million in external funding support, the school is among the nation's highest in volume of research activity. The Viterbi School of Engineering is currently ranked No. 11 nationally by U.S. News and World Report.

The school is headed by Dean Yannis Yortsos. Its research centers have played a major role in development of multiple technologies, including early development of the Internet when USC researcher Jonathan Postel was an editor of communications-protocol for the fledgling internet, also known as ARPANET. The school's faculty includes Irving Reed, Leonard Adleman, Solomon W. Golomb, Barry Boehm, Clifford Newman, Richard Bellman, Lloyd Welch, Alexander Sawchuk, and George V. Chilingar.

Previously known as the USC School of Engineering, it was renamed on March 2, 2004, as the Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering in honor of Qualcomm co-founder Andrew Viterbi and his wife Erna, who had recently donated $52 million to the school. The Viterbi School received other major gifts including gifts from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Mark Stevens who created the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation in 2004; real estate developer Daniel J. Epstein who named the Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering with an $11 million gift in 2002; Energy Corporation of America CEO John Mork who named the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science with a $15 million gift in 2005; Ken Klein, CEO and president of Wind River Systems, who established the Klein Institute for Undergraduate Engineering Life with an $11 million gift, also in 2005; Ming Hsieh, founder of Cogent Inc., who named the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering in 2006 with a $35 million gift; and Los Angeles real estate developer Sonny Astani, who named the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering with a $17 million gift in 2007.