Dr. Jean R.S. Blair, Ph.D.

Dr. Jean Blair is the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (EECS) Distinguished Professor for Innovation and a professor of computer science at the United States Military Academy (USMA), where she previously held positions as deputy to the chief academic officer, director of the Computer Science program, and director of the Information Systems Engineering program. 

She spent several sabbatical years at the university in Bergen, Norway, where she served as a visiting professor and senior research scientist. Before joining the USMA faculty in 1994, Dr. Blair spent eight years on the faculty at the University of Tennessee and was a research scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Dr. Blair’s research focuses on the design and analysis of algorithms for combinatorial problems, with recent emphasis on graph algorithms and curricular design for emerging computing disciplines. She is the author of numerous academic articles and has received research grants and awards from various agencies, including the National Science Foundation and the Army Research Labs.

An ABET volunteer since 2000, she has served as a program evaluator, team chair, commissioner, on the Computing Accreditation Commission executive committee, and chair of the Accreditation Council. She also volunteers as an accreditation team member for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and has been active in local and regional leadership of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Dr. Blair is a member of the CSAB Board, a senior member of IEEE, a senior member of the Association for Computing Machinery, and a member of both the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and the American Society of Engineering Education. She was named both an ABET Fellow and a CSAB Fellow in 2023.

Dr. Blair earned a B.S. from Allegheny College with a double major in economics and computer science, an  M.S. in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh. She is a member of Upsilon Pi Epsilon, an international honor society for the computing and information disciplines; Pi Gamma Mu, the international honor society in social sciences; and was an Alden Scholar at Allegheny College.

She has been happily married to the love of her life, Bruce, for more than 40 years; together they have three children, three children-in-laws, and three grandchildren.