Steve Kang serves as Chancellor of the University of California, Merced, founded in 2005 as the first public research university of the 21st century. He leads development of academic and research programs in emerging areas of global importance. Enrollment has more than doubled in the last two years, attracting students from throughout California, the nation, and abroad. He is focusing on developing strong programs which will contribute to addressing challenges confronting society.

Previously, he served as Dean of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, and built strong collaborative programs – NASA’s University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) in bio-info-nanotechnologies with $330 million in funding; research programs with Silicon Valley high tech companies; NSF Engineering Research Center for Biomimetic Microelectronic Systems (BMES) with Caltech and USC; California Institutes for Science and Innovation, specifically QB3 and CITRIS; and the NSF Developing Effective Engineering Pathways (DEEP) program with Foothill DeAnza Colleges. Also, he served as President of the Silicon Valley Engineering Council (SVEC).

At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he advised more than 50 Ph.D. graduates. Many are now active in Silicon Valley. Until 1985, he was with AT&T Bell Laboratories, leading the development of the world’s first 32-bit CMOS microprocessor chips and also working on planning of private network services.

Dr. Kang holds 15 U.S. patents and has written or co-authored nine books and more than 350 technical papers, and won numerous awards. As an entrepreneur, he co-founded a fabless mobile memory chip design company named ZTI, originally in Sunnyvale, now in San Jose.

Dr. Kang earned his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley; a master of science degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo; and a bachelor of science degree, graduating summa cum laude, from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ. All his academic degrees are in electrical engineering.