Parks College of Engineering and Aviation will soon be getting a new dean. Dr. Bjong “Wolf” Yeigh , PhD, will fill the dean’s position on July 1.
Yeigh said he was excited about the position and the people with whom he will be working.
“Parks College is on trajectory to make a greater impact on engineering and science,” Yeigh said. While he will be leaving prestigious Yale University, where he currently serves as assistant provost for science and technology, he said he is attracted to the fact that Saint Louis University is on the rise.
Stephen Miller, associate dean of the John Cook School of Business, chaired the search committee and said the committee, the faculty members and students with whom Yeigh associated believed he would be a good leader for the school. Miller added, “There was a feeling that he could build consensus.”
More than 50 candidates applied for the position, and the committee narrowed it down to three candidates who each visited campus, meeting with groups of faculty, staff, students and administrators.
Yeigh said that if the people he met while on campus were any indication of the people at SLU, he is even more excited to be coming here.
Although Yeigh specializes in mechanical and civil engineering, he believes his experiences at Yale and in the Navy will help him in his new role.
At Yale, Yeigh’s job was to oversee the administrative tasks of the science and social science departments, which he believes prepared him to understand and work with physics and computer science at SLU. He also helped to establish Yale’s biomedical engineering program. Yeigh regrets not having the opportunity to teach while at Yale,and he hopes to find time for that, once he gets settled into SLU.
Prior to receiving his doctorate from Princeton University, Yeigh attended officer training and spent four years as a naval intelligence officer with an F-14 fighter squadron, serving in both Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the early 1990s. That experience, he believes, gave him a great appreciation for the aviation culture.
Yeigh recognizes the challenges facing Parks, including improvements in research and graduate programs while balancing the importance of undergraduate education. He also hopes to raise the profile of Parks and SLU outside the St. Louis region.
Miller summarized Yeigh: “He really understands where Parks is and where Parks is going.”
