Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Friday, March 29, 2024

Miaoulis pulling administrative double duty

Despite his promotion last fall to Associate Provost, Ioannis Miaoulis is continuing to serve as the dean of the College of Engineering. There are no immediate plans to change this.

Although Miaoulis admits that this year's workload is more difficult than previous years, he also added that it is "much more pleasant." Miaoulis' many responsibilities are reflected in the fact that he receives over 100 e-mails a day. "A typical day for me consists of a thousand different things," he said.

This year, to aid Miaoulis, Vincent Manno has been appointed Associate Dean of Engineering.

As dean of engineering, Miaoulis' chief task consists of keeping the engineering school running. He works "closely with faculty to create strategies and goals, and to make sure that we all stay focused on achieving these goals," he said.

The School of Engineering has surpassed these goals since Miaoulis has held the position of dean. In the past five years, undergraduate applications have doubled, while the average engineering school has seen a 15 percent decline in applications. In addition, the school has accomplished 229 percent of their fundraising goals, raising over $80 million to go towards supporting research, education, and facilities development.

Also, Miaoulis, along with the rest of the Tufts engineering department, has helped to take engineering beyond the University. The pre-kindergarten-12 engineering outreach program enables elementary and high school students in Massachusetts to become more acquainted with engineering. Because of this program, Tufts has become the national leader in improving science and technology teaching at all educational levels, according to the school's website.

By serving as both associate provost and dean of engineering, Miaoulis feels that he will be able to broaden his horizons and work on a more expansive agenda. Together with the newly appointed Provost Jamshed Bharucha, Miaoulis works to knit the Tufts schools together by promoting and implementing interdisciplinary projects.

"The best thing about being associate provost is that I get to learn about fields that I know absolutely nothing about," Miaoulis said. "I get to discover what links each discipline together. And I believe that the most important answers to technological problems reside in the crevices between disciplines."

Miaoulis also plans to continue teaching at least one class per semester. This semester, he is teaching a class called "Gourmet Engineering," a class on heat transfer that takes place in the kitchen. "It's a lot of fun," he said. "We learn and cook simultaneously, I love it."

Miaoulis graduated from Tufts with a degree in mechanical engineering. After receiving his masters in economics and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from MIT, he returned to Tufts to begin teaching in 1987. He became Dean of the Engineering School in 1994