Penn State's College of Engineering invites nominations and applications for the Head of the Department of Architectural Engineering (AE) position. We seek an individual who will provide innovative and energetic leadership with strong administrative skills and a commitment to higher education. Reporting to the dean, the department head is responsible for visioning, strategic planning, operations, finances, academic affairs, and external relations and advancement.
The successful candidate will be a collaborative leader committed to strengthening the department’s education, research, service and belonging missions, and will possess the scholarly record, leadership skills, strategic capacity, and entrepreneurial spirit to advance the department. A demonstrated ability to work with industry is desirable, enabling our department to build upon and grow our existing industry partnerships successfully. Overall, the candidate should be positioned to strengthen the department's national and international reputation. The successful candidate must possess academic credentials of the highest quality and an established and widely recognized reputation in one or more sub-disciplines with an orientation toward building system integration.
An earned doctorate is required, and the candidate should be either a full-tenured professor or eligible for immediate tenure at the full professor rank.
Applications should be received by November 1, 2024, for full consideration. The review of applications will continue until the position is filled. It is intended to fill the position in advance of the 2025-2026 academic year. Applications should include a cover letter, curriculum vitae, vision statement, teaching and research statements, up to four publications, and contact information for four references.
Nominations and Inquiries regarding this leadership opportunity can be directed to: AESearch@engr.psu.edu
Heide Port
Executive Assistant to the Dean
Penn State | College of Engineering
101 Hammond, University Park, PA 16802
Telephone: 814-865-7537
The AE Department has a tradition of excellence in teaching and education for the built environment, integrating scholarly work with leading industry practice with a distinctive emphasis on the integration of systems. The AE Department has six affiliated faculty members, three faculty with partial appointments in AE, and 19 full-time faculty representing four major instructional areas: construction, lighting/electrical, mechanical, and structures while emphasizing the systems engineering integration of these technologies to achieve optimal building performance. The department is active in research and confers a full range of degrees, including the Ph.D. and M.S./M.Eng/M.A.E. at the graduate level and the 5-year ABET-accredited 85, 381 B.A.E. undergraduate students, and 98 integrated B.A.E./M.A.E students (all included in the B.A.E. count). For more information please visit: https://www.ae.psu.edu
The College of Engineering is pursuing excellence for the future under the leadership of Tonya Peeples, who began serving as the Harold and Inge Marcus Dean of Engineering in 2024. The Dean’s vision emphasizes making a positive impact on society, embracing challenges facing humankind, redefining multidisciplinary activity and engaging globally. As a member of the College’s leadership team, the AE head will play a critical role in the realization of the College’s vision as well as the articulation and execution of the expanding excellence plan.
Penn State is a public, land grant, research-intensive University with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855, the University has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service. Its instructional mission includes undergraduate, graduate, professional, and continuing education offered through resident instruction and online delivery. Annual enrollment at its 24 campuses totals more than 100,000 graduate and undergraduate students, making it one of the largest universities in the United States.
As a contributor to the land-grant mission, the college is committed to creating a welcoming community that is pursuing engineering education, research, and community engagement with the power to inspire change and impact tomorrow. The college is also committed to work-life balance, intentional, evidence-based practices to support the belonging of all community members irrespective of background, and family friendly programs for faculty. We seek executive leaders with the interest and expertise to contribute to these efforts and who want to make an impact with their career. Additional information about the College of Engineering may be found at https://www.engr.psu.edu/.
The future leader of the AE Department should be ready to guide and harness the faculty's diverse skills and research areas. The research covers a range of topics that respond to three predominant challenges: climate change, increasing demand with constrained resources, and the potential of emerging technology. Within and across these three areas, the research expertise within the AE Department ranges from building electrification, energy efficiency, and air quality to industrialized construction and robotics, virtual and augmented reality, as well as novel systems and new materials. The leader should help the department explore the global impact of advancing the built environment through strategic partnerships. It is expected that the future AE Department Head will be able to engage with the faculty researching these topics and support intra- and inter-disciplinary collaborative opportunities to develop and expand their impact.
The Architectural Engineering Department has recently moved to a brand-new facility, opened in the fall of 2024, the Engineering Collaborative Research and Education Building (ECoRE). The building features cutting-edge teaching facilities and unique research laboratories, offering revolutionary opportunities for the AE Department, including laboratories focused on building materials science and the synthesis of novel, high-performance, and carbon-negative building components; indoor air quality and aerobiology; full-scale façade component testing under simulated thermal and solar conditions; construction robotics, automation, and virtual workforce training; immersive 3D building visualization and BIM and virtual twin innovation; multi-modal (HVAC, IAQ lighting/daylighting, acoustic) occupant-built environment interaction human factors research; building controls and simulation optimization; and lighting and illumination perception research and photometric testing, along with innovative teaching demonstrations and student studios and instructional venues. These are all complemented by the shared resources offered in the adjacent Engineering Design and Innovation Building, opened in the summer of 2023, including a world-class strong wall/strong floor large-scale structural testing laboratory and first-rate student maker spaces. Penn State also benefits from a shared 40,000-core supercomputing cluster, a sophisticated and comprehensive instrumentation suite at the Materials Characterization Laboratory, and other university-wide institutes and laboratories.
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