Montemagno Becomes Dean of UC s College of Engineering

The selection of Carlo Montemagno to be the 18th dean of the UC College of Engineering brings to a close a national search, chaired by Judith Koroscik, dean of UC’s top-ranked College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning.

“What impressed me the most is the international stature of our new dean of engineering,” says Koroscik. “He has a strong record of interdisciplinary collaboration. My college is eager to work with him and his faculty in the years to come.”

“And he’s a nice guy, too,” she adds.

Montemagno joins UC from the faculty of UCLA, where he has been serving as the Chair of the Department of Bioengineering and as the Roy and Carol Doumani Professor of Biomedical Engineering. He also held a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. Prior to Montemagno’s tenure with UCLA, he served as associate professor in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering and as director of graduate studies in biomedical engineering at Cornell University.

Before receiving his PhD in civil engineering and geological sciences from the University of Notre Dame in 1995, Montemagno earned his MS in petroleum and natural gas engineering from Penn State (1990) and his BS in agricultural and biological engineering from Cornell (1980). After completing his undergraduate studies, he joined the United States Navy in 1980 and served for ten years in several senior management positions as a civil engineering corps officer.

Dean Montemagno has amassed a distinguished scholarly record resulting in several patents as well as appointments to numerous editorial boards and governmental committees. He has been the deputy director of the California Nanosystems Institute (2003 to present) and co-director of the NASA Center for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration (2002 to present); and he has worked with the Argonne National Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy. As a Fellow of the American Academy of Nanomedicine, as recipient of the Feynman Prize for Experimental Work in Nanotechnology, and as a frequent keynote/plenary speaker, he is indeed a major international figure in his field.

“Montemagno brings to his deanship a keen vision of the great opportunities and challenges facing the College of Engineering especially as the university positions itself through UC|21 as a major urban research university,” Provost Anthony Perzigian stated in his recommendation to the Board of Trustees for the appointment. “He appreciates the advantages of the college’s distinguished history, and will work assiduously to promote its advancement in engineering education, in interdisciplinary research and in service to society.”

About UC’s College of Engineering

The College of Engineering has a long and honorable history at the University of Cincinnati. The appointment of a Professor of Civil Engineering in 1874 and the organization of a Department of Engineering culminated in the establishment of the College of Engineering in 1900.

In 1906, Dean Herman Schneider introduced the first cooperative education (co-op) program in the United States. Co-op places students in practical work settings during their college careers so that they can continually apply the knowledge gained in the classroom to the practice of engineering. Today, the university conducts the nation's largest public mandatory cooperative education program at a public university.

The college has earned an international reputation through superior teaching and aggressive multidisciplinary research. The 1,950 undergraduates in nine outstanding programs and 1,000 graduate students are taught by 143 full-time faculty who conduct sponsored research of $21 million annually. With an annual operating budget of $39 million, the College of Engineering has over 700,000 square feet of space in three primary buildings: Baldwin Hall (1911); Rhodes Hall (1971); and the Engineering Research Center (ERC) (1995).

Small Times magazine ranked UC as #2 in the nation for nanotechnology education. The most recent U.S. News & World Report rankings placed six of UC’s engineering programs as follows:

• Environmental, #20     
• Aerospace, #31      
• Industrial/Manufacturing, #37      
• Civil, #48      
• Materials, #50      
• Mechanical, #60      

"The University of Cincinnati is excited to welcome Dr. Carlo Montemagno to our community," says UC President Nancy Zimpher. "His academic credentials and experience with UCLA, Cornell, Penn State and Notre Dame, along with his interdisciplinary engineering expertise, international recognition and many patent applications, show what a tremendous asset he will be to UC, our distinguished College of Engineering and to Cincinnati USA."