LaRuth McAfee, Ph.D.

LaRuth McAfee joined the Graduate College in January 2020 as senior assistant dean. She oversees programs aimed at increasing the number and success of graduate students through recruitment efforts, initiatives to support students while at UD, and support of academic program-based initiatives. Prior to the University of Delaware, McAfee served as assistant dean for diversity, inclusion and funding at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School (2014-2019), director of student engagement and community building in the BOLD Center at the University of Colorado Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science (2009-2014), and executive director for education at the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center for Layered Polymeric Systems, based at Case Western Reserve University (2006-2009). Through these experiences, she has extensive knowledge of initiatives to recruit and retain students, especially underrepresented students in engineering and related fields.

McAfee is a chemical engineer with degrees from the University of Michigan (B.S.E.) and MIT (Ph.D.). Over the past 15 years, she has focused on engineering education, starting with a postdoctoral research project sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering’s Center for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education. From these experiences, she especially enjoys working with students to help them along whatever career path meets their interests, whether that leads to a traditional or nontraditional career.