Lance R. Collins has been selected as the inaugural vice president and executive director of Virginia Tech’s new Innovation Campus in Alexandria, Virginia. He will begin his new job on August 1. The first class of Innovation Campus students will enroll in fall 2020 in existing Virginia Tech academic space in Northern Virginia. The first campus building in Alexandria’s North Potomac Yard is scheduled for completion in 2024
Since 2010, Dr. Collins has served as the Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He was a key member of the leadership team that successfully bid to partner with New York City to build Cornell Tech, which opened its Roosevelt Island campus in 2017.
Before becoming dean in 2010, Dr. Collins served as the S. C. Thomas Sze Director of the Sibley School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Cornell. He joined the faculty at Cornell in 2002. Earlier he was a professor of chemical engineering at Pennsylvania State University.
“I’m energized by the opportunity to build a campus from the ground up in the burgeoning National Landing district,” Dr. Collins said. “Our inaugural students, faculty, and new and developing partners will collaborate to advance technology to meet societal needs rather than allowing technology to define our lives.”
Dean Collins is a graduate of Princeton University in New Jersey. He earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
