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Stephanie Luster-Teasley Pass has been appointed as the permanent Dean of the College of Engineering (COE) at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, effective May 6. She previously served as the interim dean of the college since May 2022.
Before this, she was the vice provost for undergraduate education at A&T, starting May 2021, and had served in the role on an interim basis from September 2020.
As the interim dean of COE, Luster-Teasley Pass led a college of 2,402 students and 143 faculty and staff members. Her dedication to advancing COE toward the university’s strategic goals led to $42 million in new research funding, $3 million in gifts, donations, and corporate sponsorships in 2022-23, $3 million in infrastructure improvements, increased student support and engagement through the college’s Center for Academic and Student Engagement, and professional development for faculty, staff, and post-doctoral researchers through mental health activities and mental health first aid training.
Luster-Teasley Pass has been a faculty member in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering since 2004.
In 2010, she led the A&T team that developed the National 4-H Science Youth Day experiment to teach millions of K-8 students worldwide about water quality, energy use, and global warming.
During her tenure as department chair from 2016 to 2020, Luster-Teasley Pass increased enrollment from 240 to 321 students, revived alumni support and engagement to include service and donations, and successfully renewed Architectural Engineering Program Accreditation and Civil Engineering Program ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering & Technology) Accreditation, among many other accomplishments.
Luster-Teasley Pass’ research specializations include environmental remediation, water sustainability, and engineering education.
She is the first African American woman and faculty member at A&T to receive international patents from the United States, Great Britain, and Canada for developing a controlled-release chemical oxidation polymer system for the remediation of water and wastewater.
Her technology was licensed in 2017 by a company to market nationally as an emerging remediation method for groundwater and soil contamination.
Luster-Teasley Pass has also secured funding for her research from various organizations, including the U.S. Department of Education for developing a mentoring program for students in STEM disciplines, the National Science Foundation for developing and implementing case studies modules in science labs, and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund to implement science programs for middle school girls.
She has co-led the N.C. A&T ADVANCE-IT grant, which seeks to increase equity and help implement programs for female faculty to progress successfully through academia from assistant to full professorship. Her research and professional development grants have yielded more than $8 million in funding.
In recognition of Luster-Teasley Pass’s excellence in teaching, research, and service, she has received several awards, including the 2005 National Women of Color in Technology Educational Leadership Award, the 2006 N.C. A&T State University Rookie Researcher of the Year Award, and the 2008 N.C. A&T State University Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award.
She also received the UNC Board of Governors Teaching Excellence Award in 2013, the DuPont Minorities in Engineering Award at the National American Society for Engineering Education in 2014, the Black Engineer of the Year Innovation Award in 2018, and the ASEE Environmental Service Award and Michigan State University (MSU) Civil and Environmental Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award in 2020. Recently, she was invited to serve on the MSU College of Engineering Alumni Advisory Board.
After earning her B.S. in chemical engineering at A&T, Luster-Teasley Pass earned an M.S. in chemical engineering and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Michigan State. She returned to A&T in 2004 after working as an environmental engineer in private industry.