Teik C. Lim Named Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science

Following an extensive national search, University of Cincinnati Provost Beverly Davenport has named Teik C. Lim as dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science, effective March 10, 2014, pending Board of Trustees' approval. In 2012, UC President Santa J. Ono, then provost, appointed Lim to serve as interim dean. Lim has been on the mechanical engineering faculty at  UC since 2002.

“Lim has provided exceptional leadership to the college as interim dean, and I look forward to partnering with him to hire 50 new tenure-track faculty within the next five years,” said Davenport, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost.

In addition to increasing the size and diversity of the faculty, Dean Lim’s goals include increasing enrollment of undergraduate students to 4,000 and graduate students to 1,000 and increasing the college’s global reputation. During his tenure as interim dean, Lim successfully launched the Cincinnati/Chongqing Joint Cooperative Institute. The agreement between the two universities calls for UC to provide experience and expertise in establishing a mandatory co-op program in mechanical and electrical engineering at Chongqing, China, the first program of its kind in China.

According to President Ono, Lim has significantly improved the college’s finances, awarded more scholarships, increased enrollment to a historic high, enhanced fundraising, and strengthened the Emerging Ethnic Engineers (E3) program to increase the number of underrepresented minority students studying engineering and applied sciences. “I had a chance to work with Teik when I served as provost and appointed him as interim dean, and I am thrilled that he will continue to lead CEAS.”

“The exceptional support for CEAS from the president and provost made it possible for the college to gain a very strong footing and take off in an upward trajectory towards excellence,” said Lim.

Lim served as the college’s associate dean for graduate studies and research and also established a record of success as department head. Under his direction, his department saw steady growth in enrollment and research projects.

His insight and drive were instrumental in the founding of the UC Simulation Center, a collaborative effort between UC and Procter & Gamble. The center capitalizes on the computer simulation expertise at UC to provide P&G cost-effective, high-value virtual modeling and simulation capabilities that are applied to their products and manufacturing processes. The center is credited with expediting solutions to critical commercial problems quickly and at a fraction of the cost of more traditional approaches.

Lim is a Fellow of both ASME and SAE, and received the Thomas French Alumni Award from the Ohio State University in 2010. He also became a Fellow of the Graduate School, University of Cincinnati, in 2014. Lim became department head for mechanical, industrial and nuclear engineering (now mechanical and materials engineering) in January 2005. He was named Herman Schneider Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 2009. He received his bachelor's of science in mechanical engineering from Michigan Technological University in 1985, master's in science in mechanical engineering from the University of Missouri–Rolla in 1986, and doctorate in mechanical engineering in 1989 from The Ohio State University.