Dr. Daniel W. Lewis' efforts led to the creation of Santa Clara University's Computer Engineering department in 1988, providing its leadership for the first 18 years. During his tenure, Lewis established unique co-op and study abroad options that fit within the normal undergraduate four-year plan, the first graduate-level academic certificate programs for working professionals, a new interdisciplinary major in Web Design and Engineering, and a interdisciplinary minor in Information Technology and Society. Since 2004, Lewis has focused on K-12 outreach in engineering and computing, raising more than $1.7M from NSF and private sources, and providing professional development for more than 200 K-12 teachers and summer camps for more than 2,000 K-12 students.

Prior to joining the University in 1975, Lewis worked for six years at General Electric's Aerospace Division where he designed a fault-tolerant clocking system for one of the first triple-redundant automatic landing systems for commercial aircraft. He has consulted for a number of Bay Area companies, including the Singer-Link Company, where his design of new algorithms and a corresponding modular array of VLSI circuits became the basis of a new product line of real-time computer graphics systems.