Don Leo, a program manager in the Defense Sciences Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Washington, D.C., has accepted the position of associate dean for research and graduate studies of the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech.

At DARPA, Leo has managed and initiated materials research programs to improve the science and technology base of the Department of Defense. His research portfolio is valued at approximately $40 million and includes research programs in the development of autonomous material systems, chemical and biological detectors, new technologies for self-decontaminating surfaces, and novel biologically-inspired sensors.

Leo joined DARPA in August 2005 on an interagency loan agreement with Virginia Tech. Prior to this appointment, Leo was a member of the university’s mechanical engineering faculty and the Center for Intelligent Material Systems and Structures. He joined the Virginia Tech faculty as an assistant professor in 1998, becoming a full professor within six years.

“We are extremely pleased that Don Leo has accepted our offer,” said Richard Benson, dean of the College of Engineering. “He has shown great initiative at DARPA since 2005, starting more than $10 million in new research initiatives on the development of new smart materials technology and new methods for controlling protein structure and function. Simultaneously, he has remained active in research and service at Virginia Tech, continuing to advise six Ph.D. students and one post-doctoral associate.”

Leo will assume his new duties upon the July 2007 retirement of Edmund Henneke, the current associate dean and a professor of engineering science and mechanics.

“Ed Henneke has done an outstanding job for Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering. He joined the engineering science and mechanics faculty in 1971, was named the department head in 1989, and became associate dean in 2002. He twice served as the interim dean of the college. His record of service throughout his tenure at Virginia Tech has been exemplary,” Benson said.

During Henneke’s tenure, the engineering college continued its flagship role for research competitiveness, responsible for more than one-sixth of the total research expenditures of all the state’s public universities. The College of Engineering’s research expenditures more than doubled in six years, increasing from some $55 million in 2000 to more than $112 million in 2006.

“With Don Leo’s experience managing DARPA programs, he has all of the credentials to move our College of Engineering even further ahead,” Benson said.

Among his previous honors, the National Science Foundation (NSF) named him a Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award recipient in 2001. The Air Force Office of Scientific Research awarded him a Summer Faculty Fellowship in 1997 and in 1998. Most recently, he was named the 2004 Outstanding Recent Alumnus of the Aerospace Engineering Department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering in 1990.

Leo earned his master’s and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Buffalo in mechanical and aerospace engineering in 1992 and in 1995, respectively. His first academic position was on the mechanical, industrial, and manufacturing engineering faculty at the University of Toledo. He also spent two years as a project engineer for CSA Engineering Inc., in Palo Alto, Calif.

Leo and his wife Jeannine, a graduate of Virginia Tech’s former College of Human Resources and Education, have two children, Jonathan, 7, and Matthew, 6.

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