Reginald DesRoches

During his tenure as Karen and John Huff School Chair at Georgia Tech, DesRoches guided the development of a new minor in global engineering leadership[6] open to all Georgia Tech engineering undergraduates, doubled the number of named chairs/professors,[7] led a strategic interdisciplinary research initiative,[8] developed a Corporate Affiliates Program,[9] and led a comprehensive strategic planning process.[10] He also oversaw a $13.5 million renovation of the Jesse W. Mason Building, which was the main facility of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.[11] In 2014, he became Georgia Tech’s Faculty Athletics Representative,[12] serving as the liaison between the Institute and the Athletics Association. As Faculty Athletics Representative, he worked closely with the Athletic Director and university leadership — including the president, provost, and senior vice provost for academic affairs — to formulate policies affecting intercollegiate athletics on campus. His responsibilities also include representing the Institute to the Atlantic Coast Conference and the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He was appointed to the Atlantic Coast Conference leadership team as vice president of the conference for the term of 2016–2017.

Before his presidency at Rice University, DesRoches served as provost, the chief academic officer of Rice and its 7,500 students, eight schools and more than 700 faculty.[13] He previously served as the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering at the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice. In this position, DesRoches provided leadership to a top-ranked engineering school with nine departments, 137 faculty and 2,500 students.[14]

His research interests include the design of resilient infrastructure systems under extreme loads and the application of smart and auto-adaptive materials. He has published some 300 articles[15] and delivered more than 100 presentations in 30 countries.

A fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the society’s Structural Engineering Institute,[16] DesRoches served as the key technical leader in the response of the United States to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, taking a team of 28 engineers, architects, city planners and social scientists to study the impact of the earthquake.[17] He has participated in numerous congressional briefings[18] to underscore the role university research plays in addressing the failing infrastructure in the U.S.and enhancing its resilience to natural hazards. DesRoches has served as thesis adviser[19] to 30 doctoral candidates and 17 master’s students.

DesRoches chairs the Construction Safety Team Advisory Committee of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.[20] He is also on the advisory board for the National Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure. He previously served on the National Academies Resilient America Roundtable (RAR),[21] the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Advisory Committee,[22] and the Global Earthquake Modeling Scientific Board.

DesRoches has testified[23] before U.S. House and Senate subcommittees on the science of earthquake resilience, and has participated in Washington, D.C. roundtables for media and congressional staffers on topics ranging from disaster preparedness to challenges for African-American men in STEM fields. National media outlets frequently contact him for expert analysis following earthquake events, including CNN,[24] CNN International,[25] LiveScience[26] and National Geographic.[27]

DesRoches received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2002[28] — the highest honor bestowed upon scientists and engineers early in their careers. He was a recipient of the 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers Charles Martin Duke Lifeline Earthquake Engineering Award,[29] the Georgia Tech Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Adviser Award (2010),[30] the 2007 ASCE Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize,[31] and the Georgia Tech ANAK Award (2008),[32] the highest honor the undergraduate student body can bestow on a Georgia Tech faculty member. In 2019, he was a recipient of the Distinguished Arnold Kerr Lecturer Award. He gave the John A. Blume Distinguished Lecture in 2018 and that same year received the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute Distinguished Lecturer Award, one of the highest honors in the earthquake engineering field. in 2020, DesRoches was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

On November 11, 2021, it was announced that DesRoches will be the president of Rice University, beginning on July 1, 2022.