James F. Gibbons, currently Dean Emeritis of Engineering at Stanford University, received a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He joined the Stanford Electrical Engineering faculty in 1957, was named the Reid Weaver Dennis Chair in Electrical Engineering in 1983 and was named Frederick Emmons Terman Dean of Engineering at Stanford in 1984. In 1996 he became a Special Assistant to the President of Stanford University.

As an educator, Gibbons has distinguished himself as the writer of a widely used undergraduate textbook Semiconductor Electronics (McGraw-Hill 1966, revised 1982), as the author of nearly 300 scientific and technical papers and monographs, as a pioneer in ion implantation in semiconductors, and as the originator of the Tutored Video Instruction, widely used at Stanford and elsewhere for continuing education of engineers.

As an academic administrator, during Gibbons tenure as Dean of Engineering, his insistence on the highest quality of faculty appointments led to a major rise in Stanford’s School of Engineering’s national ratings, with three departments ranked first in the nation and all departments in the top seven, according to the most recent National Research Council rating of graduate departments.

Gibbons has also applied his tutored video instruction concept to pressing social problems, including the education of the children of migrant farm workers (in the 1980’s) and to anger management in at-risk teens (in the 1990’s), primarily through SERA Learning Technologies, a company he founded.

Gibbons is the recipient of many awards, and has been elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has served on committees advising the Presidential Science Advisor in the Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations.