4:30 p.m., March 21, 2011----Michael Chajes, dean of the University of Delaware's College of Engineering, has announced that he will conclude his service as dean effective July 1, 2011, and return to the faculty as professor of civil and environmental engineering.

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UD President Patrick Harker said, “Under Dean Chajes' leadership, the College of Engineering has taken significant steps forward along the Path to Prominence. The expansion of the college has been a cornerstone of the University's future plans, and Dean Chajes has worked tirelessly to make that vision a reality.”

“It has been my honor to serve the college and the University as dean of engineering,” Chajes said. “During my tenure, I have been privileged to work with some of the most outstanding faculty, staff and students at the University of Delaware -- or anywhere else, for that matter. I am proud of all that we have accomplished together, and I am very optimistic about the college's future. I look forward to continuing to contribute to the growing prominence of the college, just in a different capacity.”

UD Provost Tom Apple said, “Michael has accomplished a tremendous amount in a short period of time. Through the recruitment of talented faculty, the addition of new programs for students, the formation of new partnerships with industry, and his energetic development efforts, he has positioned the college to achieve a new level of stature. His unflagging enthusiasm for the College of Engineering and UD has propelled us all forward.”

“On behalf of the Engineering College Advisory Council (ECAC), I can say we will deeply miss Michael's leadership of the college's strategic plan,” wrote J. Michael Bowman, chair of the advisory council and president and chair of the board of the Delaware Technology Park, Inc. “In the 18 years I have served ECAC, many long-sought-after recommendations were accomplished under Michael's term as dean. He has played a critical role in the growth and prestige of UD, and it will be a challenge to replace him.”

Margaret Andersen, interim deputy provost, will chair a search committee that will conduct an expedited search of candidates to identify the next dean of the College of Engineering.

Michael J. Chajes

During Chajes' tenure as dean, the College of Engineering experienced an unprecedented level of growth. A hallmark of the college has long been it's successful research program, and under Chajes' leadership, research expenditures in the college grew from $35 million to a projected $57 million in fiscal year 2011, a 63 percent increase.

The number of faculty in the college has increased 37 percent, from 98 in 2007 to 134 in 2011, partially through the incorporation of the Department of Computer and Information Sciences and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy into the college in 2010, but also due to aggressive faculty hiring in recent years. During this period, the number of named professors in the college increased from 22 to 31.

Diversity of engineering faculty has also increased, particularly among women, who now comprise 17 percent of the college faculty. Six of the 27 new faculty hired during Chajes' tenure have been women. Chajes also appointed the first woman chair of an engineering department at UD, Anette Karlsson, who became chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2009.

The number of students in the College of Engineering has also grown substantially since 2007-2008. The number of undergraduates increased 45 percent from 1,256 to 1,820, while the number of graduate students increased more than 60 percent from 478 to 771. At the same time, the quality of students admitted to the college has also increased, with average SAT scores rising from 1871 to 1910 and average GPAs up from 3.66 to 3.77.

Chajes has focused on developing industrial partnerships to benefit the college's students and research programs. Working together with Dean Bobby Gempesaw of the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics at UD, Chajes forged a partnership with JPMorgan Chase that will contribute to both of the colleges' educational and research programs in the future. The agreement includes the establishment of a new minor in global enterprise technologies and a number of internships for UD students, as well as joint research projects and a new facility on campus.

Chajes also championed the development and approval of a new undergraduate major in biomedical engineering during his tenure, which admitted its first class of 53 students for the 2010-2011 academic year.

Chajes committed much of his time to broadening the base of donors and friends and renewing alumni interest and involvement with the college. During his tenure, the college raised roughly $23 million in pledges and outright gifts. This included an anonymous $10 million donation to fund graduate fellowships in the Department of Chemical Engineering. The $10 million donation is the largest gift to the University from an individual since 1995 and the largest outright gift ever to the College of Engineering.

Chajes joined the faculty at the University of Delaware as an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in 1990. He was promoted to associate professor in 1996, and to professor in 2002. He served as associate chair of civil and environmental engineering from 1998-2001 and chair of the department from 2001-2007. He was appointed dean of the College of Engineering in July 2008 after serving nine months as interim dean.

In addition, he has served on UD's Chairs Caucus Steering Committee and on the University's Task Force on Oral and Written Communication. He serves as co-chair of the committee overseeing the University's most recent accreditation by the Middles States Commission on Higher Education.

Chajes is a registered Professional Engineer in Delaware and served on the state's Professional Engineering Registration Board from 1995-2000. In 2010, he was named Delaware's Engineer of the Year and also was awarded a University of California at Davis College of Engineering Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal.

Chajes is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). Within ASCE, he was a member of the Department Heads Council Executive Committee from 2002-2007, serving as the chair of the council from 2005-2007. He also served as a member of the committee that planned a major national summit on the “Future of the Civil Engineering Profession in 2025” held in 2006 and on the Government Affairs and Educational Activities Committees.

Within ASEE, he is a member of the Dean's Council and currently serves on the Public Policy Committee. He also serves on several national committees including the Transportation Research Board's committees on dynamics and field testing of bridges and structures maintenance.

Chajes' areas of specialization are bridge testing, evaluation, and rehabilitation, including the use of nondestructive evaluation techniques and the application of advanced materials to repair and retrofit deteriorating structures. He is an affiliated faculty member of the Center for Innovative Bridge Engineering (which he co-founded in 2001), the Center for Composite Materials and the Delaware Transportation Center at UD.

He has served as principal investigator or co-PI on more than $5 million of research grants funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, the Federal Highway Administration, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, the Delaware Department of Transportation, and several industrial groups and foundations. Based on this research, Chajes has published more than 100 papers and presented his work through more than 70 talks in the U.S. and abroad.

As a consultant, Chajes has participated in the evaluation and testing of numerous major bridges and structures including the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the Goethals Bridge, the Ben Franklin Bridge, the Chesapeake City Bridge, the Summit Bridge, the Lock Gates on the Erie Canal, and several historic trusses and polymer composite bridges. In 1992, Chajes and a team of students rehabilitated a small Delaware bridge using an advanced composite bridge deck, one of the first such applications in the U.S.

Chajes has taught classes over the past 21 years in the areas of structural analysis and structural design. He was instrumental in the development of the college's Introduction to Engineering class that is now taken by all freshmen in engineering. He has supervised 38 master's students and four Ph.D. students while at UD, as well as more than 50 undergraduate research students.

Chajes received his bachelor's degree in civil engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and graduated with honors in 1984. He attended the University of California at Davis (UCD) and received his master of science degree in 1987 and his doctorate in 1990. While at Davis, Chajes was twice awarded that university's Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award.