A Message from the President
March 19, 2015
Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Theresa A. Maldonado as Senior Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Economic Development for UTRGV. She will begin her new role on June 1.
Prior to joining UTRGV, Dr. Maldonado was Special Assistant to the CEO of the Texas A&M Health Science Center in College Station since Oct. 2014, where she served as a member of the Executive Committee. Her primary role was to provide leadership in developing, implementing, and communicating key initiatives on behalf of the Office of the CEO, including interdisciplinary research programs between the health science center and other colleges and institutions. In addition, she was a tenured faculty member in the Electrical & Computer Engineering Dept.
Dr. Maldonado has extensive experience at the federal level in advancing research, development, and commercialization initiatives. She recently served as Director of the Engineering Education and Centers Division at the National Science Foundation in the Washington, DC, area. She was responsible for a $130M budget in support of interdisciplinary research centers, innovations in engineering education, special initiatives in support of veterans, and workforce development programs. She also served as Chair of the NSF-wide CAREER Coordinating Committee. She served a previous term at NSF in 1999-2001 as program director in the Engineering Research Centers program.
Dr. Maldonado’s academic career spans nearly 25 years at two universities – Texas A&M University and The University of Texas at Arlington – with 14 of those years in various research administration roles. At Texas A&M, these roles include Assoc. Vice Chancellor for Research of the Texas A&M University System, which is comprised of 11 universities, seven state agencies, and the health science center; Interim Vice President for Research; Assoc. Dean for Research in Engineering; and Deputy Director of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station. At UT Arlington she served as Assoc. VP for Research and Assoc. Dean for Research in Engineering. She was also founding director of the Texas A&M Energy Institute and the UT Arlington Institute for Nanoscale Science and Engineering Research and Teaching (INSERT).
Before entering academia, Dr. Maldonado was a member of technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories for five years working on optical components and systems
Dr. Maldonado earned the Ph.D., M.S.E.E., and B.E.E. with Highest Honors degrees in Electrical Engineering, all from the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as the A.S. degree in Mathematics from Macon Jr. College (now Macon State College). She was the recipient of the NSF Presidential Young Investigator award in 1991 in support of her research in electro-optics and nonlinear optics. She received three NSF Director awards for program management excellence and contributions to cross-NSF initiatives. She was an invited participant in several activities of the National Academy of Engineering; an invited member and past chair of the Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering, which reports to Congress through the NSF Director; and a past member of the NSF Math and Physical Sciences Advisory Committee. She is a Senior Member of IEEE and member of the OSA, SPIE, AAAS, ASEE, and Sigma Xi. She is a registered Professional Engineer in Texas.
Please help me welcome Dr. Maldonado to the UTRGV family.
Guy Bailey
Founding President