The world needs engineers and, in many ways, this is our moment. Climate change. Social injustice and inequality. Improving the nation’s infrastructure. Preparing for the next pandemic. Engineers should lead the way in addressing these global challenges, setting the national priorities for research and transforming engineering education. At the 2021 ASEE Annual Conference, University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines will share a vision for the role of engineering in driving positive change in our society.
Dr. Pines stepped into the President’s Office at the height of two pandemics - COVID-19 and long-standing racial injustice - having served 11 years as Dean of the A. James Clark School of Engineering. Recognizing the urgent need for social transformation and a leading part of higher education in this process, in spring 2021 Dr. Pines announced an action plan to ensure excellence in research and create a more inclusive, multicultural community at the University of Maryland.
In 2019, Dr. Pines was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and in 2021 he joined the Advisory Board of the NSF Engineering Research Visioning Alliance. He is one of the national leaders in fostering inclusion in engineering at K-12 level and principal investigator of the NSF-funded Engineering for US All (e4usa) program aimed at expanding access to engineering for high school students and teachers nationwide. Please join President Pines’ keynote lecture on Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 8:55 A.M. PDT.
Darryll J. Pines serves as president of the University of Maryland as well as the Glenn L. Martin Professor of Aerospace Engineering.
Formerly the Nariman Farvardin Professor of Engineering and dean of UMD’s A. James Clark School of Engineering, where he has been on the faculty since 1995, Pines amassed a record of academic leadership and research accomplishments that have dramatically elevated the school’s rankings and stature nationally and internationally. In 2019, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his “inspirational leadership and contributions to engineering education.”
As dean for 11 years, Pines instituted sweeping changes to improve the student experience, including revamping teaching in fundamental undergraduate courses; encouraging participation in national and international student competitions; emphasizing sustainability engineering and service learning; and expanding innovation and entrepreneurship activities.
Students have consistently taken top honors in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon, placed fifth in Elon Musk’s global Hyperloop pod design competition and hold the world record for human-powered flight duration. Among other out-of-the-classroom opportunities, the Clark School’s Engineers Without Borders chapter is considered one of the nation’s best. The school also launched Startup Shell, the first student-run business incubator on a university campus in the United States, and its students helped create two major hackathons, Bitcamp and Technica, the first all-female and non-binary hackathon on a university campus.
As a result of investments in targeted recruitment, advising, STEM outreach and its signature Keystone Engineering Education Program, the Clark School’s one-year undergraduate retention rate stands at 91% and its five-year graduation rate at 75%, which rank in the top 10 among public flagship universities in the United States.
Pines also made diversity a hallmark of his tenure as dean. As a co-principal investigator, the university became a National Science Foundation (NSF) ADVANCE grant recipient to further develop a culture of inclusive excellence, focused on improving work environments, retention and advancement of tenured and tenure-track women faculty in ways that improve the culture for all faculty. At the engineering faculty level, the number of tenured/tenure-track women faculty more than doubled from 18 to 37, and the number of under-represented minority faculty increased from 11 to 19. At the undergraduate student level, the number of enrolled women undergraduates rose from 18% to 26.5%, and the number of enrolled underrepresented minority undergraduate students grew from 9.5% to 16%. According to Diverse Issues in Higher Education, the Clark School ranks among the top 10 in conferring the most B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees to African-American students.