120 / 148
Timothy D. Sands is the 16th president of Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University, joining the university in June of
2014. A scientist, educator and inventor, he has dedicated
much of his career to advancing the impact of research and
innovation in public education. As president, he engaged the
university community in a visionary plan to advance Virginia
Tech’s role as a global land grant institution, confronting
the Commonwealth’s, the country’s and the world’s most
challenging problems.
The initiative, called “Beyond Boundaries”, seeks to define
Virginia Tech’s role a generation into the future, and align the
educational experience with the needs and opportunities that
will be created by changing world economies and the evolving
landscape of higher education.
In collaboration with the provost and academic leadership, he
has championed the development of signature Destination
Areas, thematic focus areas that leverage the university’s
signature strengths to attract talent and generate creative
energy that extends across the disciplines. The development
of these areas involves reimagining Virginia Tech’s Blacksburg
residential campus, catalyzing the economic development
of the Blacksburg-Roanoke region with a growing health
science and technology center of excellence and developing
the experiential learning and research potential in the National
Capital Region, He prioritizes building new and enhancing
existing partnerships and collaborations to use resources and
expertise in a focused and efficient way across the country and
the globe.
He also launched and led
InclusiveVT
, an initiative to provide
leadership, collaboration, guidance, and resources to support
and accelerate the implementation of inclusion and diversity
goals throughout the university community.
InclusiveVT supports the imperative of inclusion and diversity as
key components of a university ecosystem rich in opportunities
for experiential learning, cross-disciplinary engagement and
the development of cultural awareness and empathy.
President Sands’ vision for Virginia Tech embraces the
university’s heritage of service and community, and its motto,
Ut Prosim
(That I May Serve). Virginia Tech students will
graduate with disciplinary mastery, technology literacy, cultural
competency, resilience, empathy for others and the passions
and strengths needed for a life and career of impactful service
to humanity.
Before coming to Virginia Tech, President Sands served as
executive vice president for academic affairs and provost of
Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. He was acting
president during the summer and fall of 2012, before Mitchell
E. Daniels became the 12th president of Purdue.
He earned a bachelor’s degree with highest honors in
engineering physics and a master’s degree and doctorate in
materials science from the University of California, Berkeley.
He joined the Purdue faculty in 2002 as the Basil S. Turner
Professor of Engineering in the schools of materials engineering
and electrical and computer engineering. Prior to becoming
provost, he served as the Mary Jo and Robert L. Kirk Director of
the Birck Nanotechnology Center in Purdue’s Discovery Park.
From 1993 to 2002, President Sands was a professor of
materials science and engineering at the University of California,
Berkeley, and before that, he performed research and directed
research groups at Bell Communications Research (Bellcore)
in Red Bank, New Jersey. Throughout his career, he has
participated in and led research teams and academic programs
that have been characterized by open collaboration across a
wide array of disciplines.
He has published more than 250 refereed papers and
conference proceedings and has been granted 20 patents
in electronic and optoelectronic materials and devices. His
recent research efforts have been directed toward the design
and development of novel nanocomposite materials for
environmentally friendly and cost-effective solid-state lighting,
direct conversion of heat to electrical power and thermoelectric
refrigeration. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Materials Research Society
(MRS) and the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). He was
recently appointed to Governor McAuliffe’s Council on Youth
Entrepreneurship.
President Sands is joined at Virginia Tech by his wife, Dr.
Laura Sands, a professor of gerontology in the Department of
Human Development at Virginia Tech. All four of their children
graduated from Purdue and are proud members of the
Virginia Tech community. Follow President Sands on Twitter
at @VTSandsman.
T I MO T H Y D .
SANDS
U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S I D E N T
@VT_MBBall
@vthokiembb
VTMBBALL
118