Kemper E. Lewis
PhD
Professor
Director of the Sustainable Manufacturing and Advanced Technologies (SMART) CoE
Research Interests
Large-Scale Systems Design, Design Analytics, Collaborative Design Methods, Decentralized Design, Decision Theory, Decision Networks, Additive Manufacturing, Multiobjective Optimization, Machine Learning for Design and Manufacturing
Kemper Lewis, PhD, MBA, is the dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where he oversees the school’s nine departments, including faculty, staff and over 7,800 students.
Over the past few years, we have changed in innumerable ways, small and large, always striving to improve the quality of education our students receive and to grow the impact of our research. These actions make us stronger, but not complacent; the more we achieve the more we see to be done to rise to the challenge of training the next generation of engineers and leaders while delivering world-changing advances in science and technology."
Biography
Kemper E. Lewis, PhD, MBA, and dean of UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is a global leader in engineering design, system optimization and advanced manufacturing. Prior to being named dean, Lewis served as chair of UB's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, where he was also the Moog Professor of Innovation.
Lewis is also the director of UB’s Community of Excellence in Sustainable Manufacturing and Advanced Robotic Technologies (SMART), an initiative that harnesses the strengths of faculty across the university to develop advanced manufacturing and design processes including autonomy, intelligence and materials technologies.
He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and has served on the National Academies Panel on Benchmarking the Research Competitiveness of the United States in Mechanical Engineering. He has published over 200 refereed journal articles and conference proceedings and has been principal or co-principal investigator on grants totaling more than $33 million.
Active in the profession, Lewis chaired ASME’s Mechanical Engineering Department Head Executive Committee. He has received numerous awards in recognition of his teaching and research excellence from several professional societies, including ASME, the Society of Automotive Engineers, the American Society for Engineering Education, and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Lewis joined UB in 1996. He earned a BS in mechanical engineering and a BA in mathematics from Duke University, his MS and PhD in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech, and an MBA from UB.
Education
- PhD, Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1996
- MBA, School of Management, University at Buffalo, 2003
- MS, Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1994
- BS, Mechanical Engineering, Duke University, 1992
Awards and Honors
- ASME Donald N. Zwiep Innovation in Education Award, 2019
- ASME Design Automation Award, 2017
- Sustained Achievement Award, Exceptional Scholar, University at Buffalo, 2017