Cary Laxer is the new head of the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering following the retirement of Frank Young. Laxer became head of the department effective July 1.

A Rose-Hulman faculty member since 1981, Laxer has served in a variety of positions at the college with his most recent assignment being professor of computer science and electrical engineering and director of the Imaging Systems Laboratory. He has taught several computer science courses, and his research interests include biomedical computing, computer graphics and computer science education. During the 1995-96 year, he served as acting department chair.

Awards and honors for Laxer include the Dean’s Outstanding Teacher Award (1987), and Teacher of the Year by Triangle fraternity (1984).

On campus, Laxer has been the faculty representative to the Board of Trustees; chair of the Faculty Affairs Committee; chair of the Promotion, Tenure and Retention Committee; and faculty adviser to the Rose Drama Club, the student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery, Triangle fraternity and Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity.

Laxer holds a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Duke University, and he earned a B.A. degree in computer science and mathematics at New York University.

Young retired this past summer after serving as department head since 1987.