Paulini, Slepčev Appointed To Associate Dean Roles

Manfred Paulini, professor of physics, has been appointed associate dean for research for Carnegie Mellon University's Mellon College of Science; and Dejan Slepčev, professor of mathematical sciences, has been appointed associate dean for faculty and graduate affairs for MCS. Both appointments were effective Dec. 1.

"These positions are critical parts of the MCS leadership team, with important responsibilities for the advancement of our students, faculty and research," said Curtis Meyer, MCS Interim Dean and the Otto Stern Professor of Physics. "Please join me in congratulating Manfred and Dejan — and thanking them for their service!"

Manfred Paulini

Paulini has been a member of the Department of Physics faculty since 2000 and served as MCS's associate dean for faculty and graduate affairs since 2017.

"I look forward to connecting our MCS faculty with exciting funding opportunities and supporting MCS in all endeavors related to the research enterprise," Paulini said. "One such focus will be building connections to CMU colleagues university-wide to prepare for large center-scale funding calls, especially related to the Cloud Lab, AI, neuroscience or quantum information."

As associate dean for research, Paulini will work to enhance and grow research across the college and collaborate with university and external partners to develop and support research opportunities. Paulini is the second associate dean for research for MCS. Meyer held the position from 2017 until being appointed as interim dean earlier in 2023.

Paulini's research focuses on experimental particle physics. He leads the high-energy group in the Department of Physics and serves as PI for the latest Department of Energy grant to fund high-energy physics at Carnegie Mellon.

A member of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, he studies the nature of dark matter. He and John Alison, assistant professor in physics, lead a team starting to build in the next two years about 5,000 modules for the High Granularity Calorimeter, an upgrade to the current CMS detector.

Paulini is a fellow of the American Physical Society and earned his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany. Prior to joining Carnegie Mellon he was a postodctoral fellow and then staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Dejan Slepčev

Slepčev has been a member of the Department of Mathematical Sciences faculty since 2006 and currently serves as its associate department head and director of graduate studies.

As MCS's associate dean for faculty and graduate affairs, he will be responsible for matters relating to graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty in the college. He succeeds Paulini in the post.

"I am looking forward to serving and helping the college run efficiently, and helping its graduate students, postdocs and faculty achieve their goals and do their best work at CMU," Slepčev said. "f you have questions for me or are aware of issues that I could help resolve, please reach out."

Slepčev's research is in applied analysis; he uses techniques of calculus of variations, partial differential equations, and optimal transportation to address problems arising in machine learning, signal processing, and energy-driven systems.  Slepčev is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Nonlinear Science, the Journal of Nonlinear Analysis and the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics Journal on Mathematical Analysis.

He received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining Carnegie Mellon in 2006, he taught and researched at the University of California at Los Angeles and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto.