Board Member Profile

David E. Daniel
President
The University of Texas at Dallas

David E. Daniel is the fourth President of The University of Texas at Dallas. He received his bachelors, masters, and Ph.D. degrees in engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and served on the faculty at U. T. Austin from 1980 to 1996. In 1996, he moved to the University of Illinois, finishing his service there as Dean of Engineering before joining UTD as its president in 2005. While serving as Dean, Illinois’ College of Engineering rose in national rankings to No. 4, trailing only MIT, Stanford, and California-Berkeley, and also opened a new $80M computer science center in addition to launching a new Department of Bioengineering.

Dr. Daniel’s professional work has focused on environmental controls for contaminated land and groundwater. He has published over 100 technical articles and authored or edited five books. His work has been recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers, which awarded him its highest award for papers published in its journals (the Norman Medal) and on two separate occasions awarded him its second highest award, the Croes Medal. He has taught more than 125 continuing education and training courses on environmental controls, which have been attended by more than 15,000 engineers and scientists. In 2000, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the nation’s highest recognition for engineering achievement.

In 2005 and 2006, he served as Chair of the External Review Panel of the American Society of Civil Engineers, which was charged by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with review of the government’s work in identifying facts surrounding the performance of New Orleans’ levees during Hurricane Katrina, and to advise on the causes of failure and the adequacy of the levees to resist flooding from future hurricanes.

As President of UTD, Daniel has initiated a broadly inclusive strategic planning process, scaled up UTD’s development and communications programs, reconfigured several key leadership positions, overseen continued growth of the institution’s academic and research programs, launched a campus beautification project, and worked with the DFW community to build new partnerships.