Dr. Steven W. McLaughlin is the Dean and Southern Company Chair of the College of Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He serves as the chief academic officer of the College and provides leadership to more than 500 faculty members and 13,000 students;  the largest engineering college in the country.

McLaughlin received the B.S.E.E. degree from Northwestern University, the M.S.E. degree from Princeton University, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Michigan. He joined the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech in September 1996.  From 2012-2017 he was the Steve Chaddick School Chair in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and from 2007-2012, he was Vice Provost for International Initiatives and Steven A. Denning Chair in Global Engagement.

In 2014, he co-founded CREATE-X, a campus-wide effort to instill entrepreneurial confidence in students and help them launch companies. In its first three years the program has successfully launched 72 student-led companies and engaged 1500+ students in the principles and practice of evidence-based entrepreneurship.

In 2011, he was awarded the honor Chevalier dans l`Ordre Nationale de Merite, (Knight of the French National Order of Merit), the second highest civilian award given by Republic of France. He was the first Georgia Tech recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) where he was cited by President Clinton “for leadership in the development of high-capacity, nonbinary optical recording formats.” He a past President of the IEEE Information Theory Society and is a Fellow of the IEEE.

His research interests are in the general area of communications and information theory. His research group has published in the areas of forward error correction and equalization in wireless communications. magnetic/optical data storage, data security and privacy. His group has published more than 250 papers in journals and conferences and holds 36 U.S. patents.