Thayer Hires New Dean

Thayer Hires New Dean

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ENGINEERING

“I am a voracious problem-solver. It’s the engineer in me,” says Alexis Abramson, new dean of the Thayer Engineering School. A mechanical engineer with public-and private-sector leadership experience in sustainable energy, Abramson arrives at a moment when the school holds much promise. Construction is underway on a new, $200-million building that will house Thayer, the department of computer science, and the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship. “We are exactly on time and on budget” for a fall 2021 opening, Abramson says.

The new dean comes from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where she’s taught mechanical and aerospace engineering since 2003. She served as co-director of Case’s Great Lakes Energy Institute and worked as a technical advisor for Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a $l-billion venture capital firm launched by Bill Gates to address climate change. Abramson, 46, previously spent two years at the U.S. Department of Energy.

“I have not followed a traditional academic path, because I have always been intrigued by the complexities at the intersection of the academic and external worlds,” says Abramson, a Cleveland native who is married and has two teenage children. “I think my varied background meshes well with what Thayer is about.” Her education includes B.S. and M.S. degrees from Tufts and a Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley, all in mechanical engineering.

“She is an accomplished engineering scholar who understands not only how to develop technology, but also how to connect that technology to sound public policy and to deploy that technology through commercialization,” says provost Joseph Helble, who served as Thayer’s dean for 13 years. Abramson’s new priority is to develop a strategic growth plan to build on what she calls Thayer’s “vibrant research activity” and “very distinctive” educational model. Her goals include raising the school’s profile and visibility. She hopes to provide students with more real-world experiences and bring in more visiting experts and faculty. She says she also hopes to grow “in a responsible way” the number of faculty at Thayer and to “significantly” boost the number of its graduate students.

George M. Spencer

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