Robert A. Altenkirch joined New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) as the university's seventh president in July 2002. At NJIT, Altenkirch is leading the effort to enhance research funding and intellectual property management, improve the quality of life on campus, emphasize alumni relations and private fund raising, gain national prominence for a number of NJIT’s academic and research programs, and strengthen the recruiting of high-achieving students from diverse backgrounds. Altenkirch has served on a number of commissions and boards of the city of Newark and the State of New Jersey, including the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation, Chair of University Heights Science Park, Chair of the Newark Downtown Core Redevelopment Corporation overseeing the public investment in an 18,000 seat arena in downtown Newark, named the Prudential Center and home to New Jersey’s National Hockey League team the New Jersey Devils, and redevelopment projects in the downtown core area.
Prior to his appointment as President at NJIT, Altenkirch served as vice president for research at Mississippi State University (MSU) and earlier as dean of the College of Engineering and Architecture at Washington State University. From 1988 to 1995, he was dean of the College of Engineering at MSU. He also served as professor and chair of mechanical engineering at the University of Kentucky.
During his tenure as MSU vice president for research, science and engineering expenditures, as reported to National Science Foundation (NSF), increased dramatically, 75 percent from 1997 to 2001. In addition to the research program at MSU, Altenkirch’s responsibilities encompassed federal relations, intellectual property management, and economic development. While dean of engineering at MSU, he provided leadership in the effort to secure National Science Foundation funding for the establishment of the MSU NSF Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation in 1990. Additionally, the Center was instrumental in helping the State of Mississippi attract a $1 billion Nissan manufacturing plant.
Altenkirch holds a PhD from Purdue University, an MS from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BSME from Purdue, all in mechanical engineering. He is the author of over 50 publications and nearly 100 presentations in combustion and heat transfer and served as principal investigator for ten Space Shuttle experiments investigating the spread of fire in reduced gravity. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.