Steering Committee
Executive Committee
Keith Buffinton - Executive Director
Professor of Mechanical Engineering and former Dean of Engineering at Bucknell University
Keith Buffinton is the inaugural Executive Director of the Coalition for Transformational Education, an organization focused on promoting lifelong student wellbeing.
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Prior to his current role, he served on the faculty of Bucknell University, where he is now Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Dean of Engineering, emeritus. At Bucknell, he also served as co-director of Bucknell’s Institute for Leadership in Technology and Management as well as Special Assistant to the Provost for Engineering Collaborations. During sabbaticals from Bucknell, he has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Rochester, Stanford University, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Olin College of Engineering, and the University of Stuttgart. Buffinton has received various awards for his teaching and leadership, including Bucknell’s Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, the “Star Performers Award for Innovation” from the Small Business Development Center of Pennsylvania, the award for “Outstanding Achievement in Mechanical Engineering” from the Tufts Department of Mechanical Engineering, the inaugural Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network Dean’s Award, the Charles H. Coder Entrepreneurial Leadership Award, and the Burma-Bucknell Bowl Award for “outstanding contributions to intercultural and international understanding.” Buffinton is a former member of the Executive Board of the ASEE Engineering Deans Council and currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Smull College of Engineering at Ohio Northern University, the Advisory Board for the Tufts Center for Engineering Education Outreach, the Interim Executive Committee for the Grand Challenges Scholars Program Network, and as a Senior Advisor to the Editorial Board of LearningWell magazine. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering summa cum laude from Tufts University and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford.
Richard K. Miller - Founding Chair
President Emeritus of Olin College of Engineering
President Emeritus (and first employee) at the Olin College of Engineering. Member of the Advisory Committee for the Lemelson Foundation, the Advisory Council for the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, the Board of Trustees at the Asian University for Women, and Research Affiliate at MIT.
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Previously, he served as Dean of Engineering at the University of Iowa, Associate Dean of Engineering at USC in Los Angeles, and assistant professor of engineering at UCSB in Santa Barbara. Miller is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors, and a Member of the National Academy of Engineering. He has served as Chair of the Board on Higher Education and Workforce of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and as Chair of the Engineering Advisory Committee of the National Science Foundation. Miller earned his B.S at the University of California, Davis, his S.M. from MIT, and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology, where he received the Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award in 2014.
Marjorie Malpiede
Executive Director of the Mary Christie Institute
John Volin
Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost at University of Maine