College of Engineering hires 30 percent of its faculty in 2013 College of Engineering hires 30 percent of its faculty in 2013

WSU's College of Engineering has hired 22 faculty in aerospace engineering, bioengineering, computer science, electrical engineering, engineering technology, industrial and manufacturing engineering, and mechanical engineering in 2013. This constitutes more than 30 percent of the faculty in the college at this time, which is unprecedented for the college.

All College of Engineering faculty and staff are invited to a welcome back reception hosted by the college from 4:30-6 p.m. today (Tuesday, Aug. 20) in Beggs Hall lobby.

The college now has 70 full-time faculty compared to only 42 in fall 2011. The new hires include one associate professor and director of engineering technology, 14 assistant professors, and seven engineering educators.

With the new hiring of four women, two Hispanic-Americans and one African-American, the College of Engineering's faculty diversity has increased significantly. The leadership of Vish Prasad, interim dean of engineering, has been crucial to the College of Engineering's hiring success in the past six months.

The primary responsibility of the engineering educators is teaching and student recruitment, advising and retention. Tenured-track assistant professors, tenured associate professors and (full) professors of engineering, on the other hand, are expected to engage in funded research, scholarly activities and advisement of masters and doctoral students in addition to teaching.

All of the new assistant professors have come to Wichita State with doctoral work at leading U.S. research universities. Many of them have also earned either post-doctoral, industrial and/or technology development experience. They bring exposure and experience of institutions like Florida (Gainesville), Georgia Tech, Harvard, Iowa State, Michigan (Ann Arbor), Michigan State, Ohio State, Princeton, Purdue, Texas A&M, Washington State and Washington University.

With recent hires of research-active faculty, as well as the continuing faculty with extensive research success, the new hires are expected to substantially expand the research enterprise of the College of Engineering. They will work closely with Wichita companies and develop new technologies that can further contribute to economic development in the state of Kansas. The College of Engineering is preparing to contribute greatly to President Bardo's vision of making Wichita State University a major research institution.