2022 2022: UMassD's Next Provost and VC for Academic Affairs

Chancellor Fuller announces the appointment of Dr. Hanchen Huang as the next Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Dear Members of the UMass Dartmouth Community,

I am pleased to let you know that Dr. Hanchen Huang will join UMass Dartmouth as our next Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs on July 18, following a competitive national search. Dr. Huang is a distinguished engineer and highly accomplished leader who has served as a department chair in mechanical and industrial engineering and as the Dean of a College of Engineering. He brings substantial experience in growing enrollment, faculty lines, and research activity in engineering programs at both private and public research universities. 

A first-generation college student himself, Dr. Huang is deeply committed to UMass Dartmouth’s mission of educational access and social mobility. He has been recognized for his successful efforts to expand diversity and inclusion by his students while at Northeastern University and by the American Society for Engineering Education while at the University of North Texas, and has prioritized mentoring and advising programs for students throughout his career.

Dr. Huang comes to us from the University of North Texas, an R1 research university and Hispanic-Serving Institution, where he has served as Dean of the College of Engineering and Lupe Murchison Foundation Chair Professor since January 2019. He is returning to the Commonwealth, having served as a faculty member and Department Chair of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston. Dr. Huang earned his PhD in nuclear engineering from UCLA, a BS in Physics from Hebei Normal University and MS in Theoretical Nuclear Physics from the Institute of Atomic Energy/Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China. Dr. Huang was a post-doctoral fellow in computational mechanics and materials at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to everyone who participated in the sessions with our finalists and provided me with feedback following their visits. I am also especially grateful to the members of the Provost Search Committee, who worked in partnership with Storbeck Search to recruit a pool of highly qualified candidates and to bring four very strong finalists to campus in April. They were exceptionally thoughtful and articulate in their engagement with the candidates and in sharing their insights with me, as well as being wonderful ambassadors for UMass Dartmouth throughout the search.

Finally, I would like to warmly thank the two academic leaders who have so ably held the Provost’s role on an interim basis through the pandemic and a time of considerable leadership transition at the university, Mike Goodman and Ram Bala, who will resume his role as Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation this summer.

I know that Dr. Huang is very keen to get to know all of you when he arrives later this summer. Until then, please join me in welcoming him to the SouthCoast, and UMass Dartmouth.

Go Corsairs!

Mark A. Fuller, PhD

Chancellor