Squires named vice dean, to serve as interim dean of ASU engineering

Paul Johnson, dean of Arizona State University's Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, has appointed Kyle Squires, director of the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, to the position of vice dean. The appointment took effect Monday. 

"Kyle has always shown an interest in and affinity for building successful integrative initiatives  like our cross-school robotics and manufacturing centers of excellence and ASU's Global Security Initiative,” said Johnson. “This makes Kyle an excellent choice for the new vice dean position."

Squires also will move into the role of interim dean July 1, as Johnson leaves ASU to head the Colorado School of Mines. This will be followed by a national search for the new dean of ASU Fulton Schools of Engineering. 

“Dr. Squires’ blend of research expertise, investment in innovative approaches in teaching and training of students and leadership with the university make him an ideal candidate for interim dean,” said Mark Searle, interim university provost. “I look forward to working with him as we continue to advance ASU research and engineering education nationally and globally.”

Fulton schools’ undergraduate and graduate programs are ranked 23rd among public institutions and No. 14 for online engineering graduate programs by U. S. News & World Report. The engineering program has attracted more than 300 world-class faculty members and nearly 17,000 students, including the most veterans and service members and a record-setting 2,542 first-time freshman.  

As the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy (SEMTE) director, Squires led the school through a period of rapid faculty, enrollment and research growth, and has overseen degree and research programs in aerospace engineering, chemical engineering, materials science and engineering, mechanical engineering and the professional science master’s program in solar energy engineering and commercialization. He has also served as interim co-director of ASU’s Security and Defense Systems Initiative prior to its reconceptualization as the Global Security Initiative. 

“Engineering has been on a steep growth path and I would like to continue that growth across the academic programs and our research enterprise, all the while continuing to seek new opportunities to innovate in our teaching and research,” said Squires. “As our enrollments have grown, so have measures of student retention and success - sustaining these achievements is key.” 

Squires’ expertise and interests encompass computational fluid dynamics, turbulence modeling for single- and multi-phase flows, high-performance computing, and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and research. His modeling studies have spurred new understanding of particle-laden turbulence through simulations and have advanced the state-of-the-art in computational fluid dynamics for prediction of a wide variety of complex turbulent flows. 

Models developed by Squires and his colleagues have been used to study how to improve the aerodynamics of aircraft, ground vehicles and sports equipment, among other applications. 

Squires received his doctoral degree from Stanford University in mechanical engineering and came to ASU in 1997 from the University of Vermont. He has served in a wide range of leadership positions in the Fulton Schools of Engineering, including most recently as the director of SEMTE, and previously as the chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and associate chair of the department’s graduate program.  

He is a senior sustainability scientist with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability and an elected fellow to the American Physical Society. 

“Our faculty members continue to achieve impressive successes in research, from winning major centers to garnering numerous recognitions, especially among the cohort hired over the past few years,” said Squires. “I hope to help accelerate the schools’ accomplishments and as we advance, also cultivate new opportunities for our students, staff and faculty.”