Dr. Ruth A. Dyer became Kansas State University's Interim Provost in July 2009, after serving for five years as Associate Provost.
As Interim Provost, Dr. Dyer serves as Chief Academic Officer of Kansas State University, which has more than 23,000 students, 1600 faculty, a budget of over $730 million, and research funding that exceeds $215 million. Twelve deans and ten other units, including the offices of the Vice Provost for Information Technology Services and the Vice President for Research, report to Interim Provost Dyer. Dr. Dyer also serves as a representative of the President and in place of the President during his absence.
Upon completing her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kentucky in 1980, Dr. Dyer accepted her first academic tenure-track appointment in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Kansas State University in 1983. She attained the rank of Professor in the ECE Department in 1997. She began her administrative career at K-State in 1998 when she was selected as the Assistant to the Provost. She subsequently served as the Assistant Provost from 2000 to 2004, and became Associate Provost in 2004. During the 2003-2004 academic year, she had the opportunity to serve as an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow at The Ohio State University, working with President Karen Holbrook, Executive Vice President and Provost Barbara Snyder, and Vice President for Government Relations Ellyn Perrone. As an investigator for university-wide research projects, Dr. Dyer has been involved in numerous ongoing grants and proposals for engagement and outreach, the funding for which has totaled almost $5 million.
She also has engaged in numerous professional activities outside of the university, serving in several leadership roles in various engineering professional societies and organizations. She is serving her third term as an elected member of the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement (I&M) Society, and she served a two-year term as Vice President for membership of this society. She also has served on the Board of Directors of the International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (IMTC), and she is the General Conference Co-Chair for the 2010 IMTC. Dr. Dyer is currently involved as a facilitator with the Women’s Leadership Network, which has received funding from both NSF and the Sloan Foundation. She is a Fellow of the IEEE, formerly known as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and has been a member since 1986. Dr. Dyer is also one of seven individuals from across the nation to be named a Fellow of the Association of Women in Science in 2006.
Interim Provost Dyer is pleased to be part of the leadership team at Kansas State University and to be part of the dynamic and high-quality land-grant institution that serves Kansas, the United States and the world on numerous fronts.