Griffin named interim engineering dean

By Patrick Kurp
Special to the Rice News

Rob Griffin, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and senior associate dean for the Brown School of Engineering, will begin serving as the school’s interim dean July 1.

Rob Griffin

On that date, the current dean, Reginald DesRoches, will take office as Rice’s provost.

“Since Rob joined the dean’s team, he has done a fantastic job ensuring the school’s financial and business operations are efficient and effective, and that its programs are aligned with our strategic priorities,” DesRoches said. “We are grateful that Rob has agreed to take on this important role in these difficult times.”

Griffin joined the Rice faculty in 2008. He received his bachelor’s degree from Tufts University in 1993 and his master’s and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1997 and 2000, respectively, all in chemical engineering. Before coming to Rice, Griffin was an associate professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of New Hampshire. He became senior associate dean in 2019 after serving as civil and environmental engineering department chair since 2015.

Griffin’s research focuses on performing field, laboratory and computational experiments designed to understand the effects and behavior of pollutants in the troposphere. His research has been funded by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Houston Endowment, the Dreyfus Foundation, the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among others.

Griffin’s work has been published in Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; Environmental Science and Technology; the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres; Geophysical Research Letters; Atmospheric Environment; and the Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry.

At Rice, Griffin has taught undergraduate courses in air pollution control and fluid mechanics and graduate courses in atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric aerosols. He is a member of the American Association for Aerosol Research, the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union and the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors.