Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Rama Venkat named dean of UNLV engineering college

UNLV has a new dean for its engineering college.

Rama Venkat, the interim dean of UNLV’s Howard Hughes College of Engineering, has accepted an offer to permanently lead the college, according to an announcement this morning.

Venkat is a longtime faculty member who created the college’s biannual Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design competition in 1999. Since then, the senior capstone project has partnered with the Lee Business School to help engineering students develop commercial and marketing plans for their inventions.

Venkat was named interim dean in 2010. Under his leadership, the engineering school partnered with UNLV’s architecture schools on the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition.

UNLV Desert Sol, a student-designed and built net-zero energy house, won first place in the United States and second internationally.

“I am grateful for the opportunity to continue to lead the College of Engineering on its rise toward top-tier status,” Venkat said in a statement. “I’ve dedicated the past 25 years of my career to UNLV as a faculty member, teacher, research and administrator, and I’m proud to be at the helm of a college that plays such an integral role in both the educational and economic development aspiration of our university and community.”

Venkat has authored or coauthored dozens of publications on solar power and energy-efficient display technologies. He has supervised and graduated nearly 30 graduate students, won a variety of teaching awards and brought in more than $2 million in research funding to UNLV.

Venkat received his B.Tech. in metallugical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 1983. He has an M.S. in metallurgical engineering and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Purdue University.

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