Newswise — Olin College President Richard K. Miller, who will step down from his position on June 30, 2020, after 21 years, will serve as the Jerome C. Hunsaker Visiting Professor of Aerospace Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the 2020-21 academic year.
The professorship was established in 1954 by the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. It is named after MIT professor Jerome Hunsaker in honor of his achievements in aeronautical engineering.
“I am particularly pleased that this appointment will be in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, as it was my undergraduate discipline,” said Miller. “In addition to learning about and contributing to several major educational initiatives currently underway at MIT, I hope to foster a closer collaboration between Olin and MIT.”
Miller was appointed the president and first employee of Olin College of Engineering in 1999. In just 20 years, Olin College has become an internationally recognized engineering school, known for its interdisciplinary approach to engineering education, a gender-balanced student body and an emphasis on experimentation. Olin is No. 3 on the U.S. News & World Report rankings of undergraduate engineering programs and was recently named one of the top leaders in engineering education globally by a recent MIT study.
Before launching Olin College, Miller served as dean of engineering at the University of Iowa, associate dean of engineering at the University of Southern California and assistant professor of engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Miller received the 2017 Brock International Prize in Education for his many contributions to the reinvention of engineering education in the 21st century. Together with two Olin colleagues, he received the 2013 Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education from the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE). A member of both the NAE and the National Academy of Inventors, Miller was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2017. In 2011, he received the Marlowe Award for creative and distinguished administrative leadership from the American Society for Engineering Education.
A frequent speaker on engineering education, he received the 2002 Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award from the University of California, Davis, where he earned his B.S. He earned his M.S. from MIT and his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology, where he received the 2014 Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award.
“We are thrilled to have Richard join our faculty ranks as our Hunsaker Professor for the next academic year,” says Daniel Hastings, Cecil and Ida Green Education Professor and head of the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. “We have identified a number of educational priorities to focus on in the coming years that align particularly well with Richard’s expertise on engineering education reform. His experience and enthusiasm will bring so much value to the Department and we look forward to collaborating with him as a colleague.”
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