Senior hires stand out in an impressive year for faculty hiring

With an expanded need for faculty in the new Department of Robotics and an influx of senior faculty members, Michigan Engineering’s 2022-2023 hiring effort resulted in 36 tenured and tenure-track hires to date, with this number expected to rise given a few outstanding offers. The total number of tenured and tenure-track faculty for Fall 2022 is 435, a 4% increase since Fall 2017.

This year’s hiring effort was larger than usual, in part due to the creation of the Department of Robotics, a first among the nation’s top 10 engineering schools. With faculty in several departments transitioning to Robotics, the need for new hires at the College was spread across 11 of its 14 departments and divisions. This included a strong cohort of 11 senior faculty (including seven full professors), who previously held positions at Stevens Institute of Technology; the University of Arizona; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; the University of Minnesota; Virginia Tech; Wayne State University; and others.

This year’s hiring effort also brought an additional 25 lecturers, nine research track faculty and one professor of practice.

“Faculty hiring is one of the most important activities we undertake in the College, and I want to acknowledge the tremendous effort of our entire community as we select and recruit these new colleagues,” said Alec D. Gallimore, the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering, the Richard F. and Eleanor A. Towner Professor, an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, and a professor of aerospace engineering. “The strength of our vision and our culture is drawing fresh energy and expertise. Our new faculty members, including senior faculty established in their specialties, have told me how energized they are by our vision for people-first engineering, and I look forward to seeing how they apply this framework in the classroom, the lab and the field.”

To ensure the quality and diversity of the candidate pool, the College has emphasized inclusive hiring practices. This includes a critical review of the methods used to develop and vet the pool of faculty applicants. The departments work with the College Executive Committee to ensure that they are taking steps to diversify the candidate pool when soliciting applications, and to make sure that the process used to select candidates for interviews is fair and equitable.

Michigan Engineering received approximately 2,500 applications for faculty positions last year, for a hiring rate of less than 2%. This follows a strong round of hiring in the previous academic year, when 20 assistant professors joined the faculty.