Meldrum’s accomplishments as dean marked by passion for progress

Deirdre Meldrum goes into 2011 in a new role as the leader of one of the most ambitious research endeavors ever undertaken at Arizona State University. But whatever success she may achieve in that pursuit, it won’t overshadow the impact she’s imprinted on the university’s future during her past four years as dean of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

Colleagues, peers, students she mentors and others credit Meldrum with boldly charting a course for ASU’s engineering schools to rise to the forefront of engineering discovery and innovation in education. 

Meldrum orchestrated a transformation aimed at breaking barriers long cemented in place by conventional ways of organizing engineering schools.

Ten departments have been reconfigured into five engineering schools that integrate traditionally separate engineering disciplines, with the goal of fostering more collaborative research focused on solving the world’s most pressing needs for technological progress – and ensuring students are better prepared to meet the demands of the 21^st century engineering marketplace. 

Transformative changes

She’s led implementation within the engineering schools of the “New American University” directive set by ASU President Michael Crow and the “Grand Challenges” goals formulated by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), both of which challenge engineers to take leading roles in maintaining and improving the quality of life on a global scale.

“Dean Meldrum has steadfastly navigated the university’s engineering schools through a transformation in structure that provides a framework for research endeavors to meet the nation’s most critical engineering needs for decades to come, and ensures our students will benefit from the most creative innovations in engineering education,” Crow says. 

In addition, she’s been involved in the national academy’s Frontiers in Engineering Education, an effort to spark innovation in education on a national scale.

“She has led by example on a grand scale by supporting our goals to re-orient engineering education and by reorganizing engineering research and education at ASU around the Grand Challenges,” says Charles M. Vest, NAE president.

Those accomplishments led to the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering organizing an NAE Grand Challenges Summit in 2010. It was one of five regional summits for which the NAE selected some of the most prominent engineering schools in the country as hosts and organizers.

The ASU summit “was very effective in bringing together leaders from business, government and academia to explore their roles in facing the Grand Challenges,” Vests says.

He also lauds Meldrum for her role as an adviser to the NAE Change the Conversation program, an industry-university collaboration aimed at improving the quality, quantity and diversity of the nation’s engineering workforce.

“Dean Meldrum’s leadership in organizing the ASU schools of engineering around the themes of the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges demonstrates extraordinary vision. It’s an inspiration to every engineering school in the nation,” says Richard K. Miller, president of the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts. Olin College was among the schools presenting Grand Challenges summits.

Miller credits Meldrum for being “among the first to recognize the great potential of the Grand Challenges to galvanize the talents and abilities of the best and brightest minds across disciplines to contribute to building a better future for the planet. She has also led efforts to use these ideas to reach out to today’s youth and attract more of them to study science, technology, engineering and math, a goal of great national importance.”

High-profile research

Beyond these achievements, Meldrum set herself apart by not only handling the leadership duties of a large school – about 6,000 students and more than 200 faculty members – but maintaining and expanding the multifaceted research she brought to ASU when she departed the University of Washington.

In ASU’s Biodesign Institute, Meldrum directs the Center for Biosignatures Discovery Automation (formerly the Center for Ecogenomics). Its research capabilities led to a second five-year $18 million federal grant –  one of the highest individual grant amounts in ASU’s history – to continue her lab’s work with her National Institutes of Health Center for Excellence in Genomic Sciences to better understand the causes and find cures to many widespread diseases and ailments – in particular, cancer and inflammation. 

“She directs one of the most impactful and progressive research c enters in the Biodesign Institute,” says Alan Nelson, executive director of the Institute. “She has aggressively innovated breakthrough technologies to address the most pressing health care needs in the U.S., to advance personalized medicine toward discovering an individual's biosignature, predicting disease vulnerability so that treatments can be preventive. Her vision of the future of health care is a dramatic paradigm shift.” 

Nelson places Meldrum “among the most dedicated, focused and innovative scientific leaders on the planet. She moves with purpose and decisiveness that overcomes even the most daunting hurdles. She is a big thinker and a big doer who also appreciates the power of teamwork. This may explain why she consistently surprises the experts with her pivotal accomplishments.” 

Forefront of discovery

Her center also continues its work with the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatory Initiative. For that endeavor, Meldrum and her research partners are developing sensors and other sophisticated devices to measure biological, chemical and physical aspects of the sea-floor environs at the microbial level. 

The technology promises major advances in deep-sea exploration by providing a sensor network that makes possible real-time, biogeochemical measurements of microbes and their response to undersea events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and landslides, and enables scientists to conduct complex experiments using the network’s interactive capabilities. 

In addition, Meldrum’s lab is doing work to fight cancer as part of ASU’s Center for the Convergence of Physical Science and Cancer Biology, one of 12 such centers in the country supported by the National Cancer Institute.

Her expertise overseeing research covering a broad range of engineering and science disciplines has led Meldrum to her new role as ASU Senior Scientist and appointment as the leader of the ASU Biosignatures Initiative. Its goal is to become a national center for the engineering and scientific advances needed for personalized pre-symptomatic diagnosis and prevention of disease to enable better health and quality of life. 

“In her new role leading biosignatures research, she will guide work with the potential to have an immense impact on improving human health and the environmental health of the planet,” Crow says.

“I’m proud of all of the progress made under her leadership,” says philanthropist Ira A. Fulton, for whom ASU’s engineering schools are named. “Now the future relies on her ability to dream of even bigger achievements.”

Inspiring support

Subhash Mahajan, one of ASU’s most recognized engineering researchers and educators, expects Meldrum to excel in her new job.

“She is a creative researcher and an effective research manager. She thinks outside the box,” Mahajan says. “She’s provided a vision for our engineering schools that will guide them for years to come. Her stature in the engineering community is high, and in her new role she will soar further.”  

Peers outside of ASU say they’re confident Meldrum is a good choice for the new challenge.

“The way she brings together people in disparate fields with different viewpoints, and then gets their support and moves things forward has been impressive,” says Gary Tooker.

Tooker is a former chief executive officer of Motorola who at times advised ASU on engineering research and education objectives. Meldrum’s leadership motivated him and his wife, Diane, to invest $4 million to enable ASU to devote five faculty members to outreach efforts to better educate Arizona K-12 students in science, technology, engineering and math.

“She inspired our support,” he says of Meldrum. “The way she has broken the mold and brought change I am sure will be successful in attracting students who can be the innovators we need in the world.”

Setting big goals

Jack Saltich, chief executive of Vitex Systems, a California-based company involved in intellectual property licensing in the electronics field, served three years on the engineering schools’ executive and corporate advisory board.

Saltich says Meldrum “has done a good job of listening to people in industry. She populated [the advisory board] with people from small businesses and big businesses, and was open to everyone’s ideas. And I think she has really tried to take those ideas and make changes [in ASU engineering programs] that will prepare students to work in today’s and tomorrow’s industry.” 

“She’s really working with the business community, and that’s going to pay off in helping [ASU engineering students] find internships and employment for students,” said another board member, Brenda McCaffrey, an engineer and entrepreneur who earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at ASU.

More than that, McCaffery said of Meldrum, “She doesn’t think small. She sets big goals, and she goes beyond professionalism to passion” in pursuing them. “She stays true to her values even under all the pressure of leadership.” 

Attentive mentor

Students whom Meldrum has been mentoring are equally impressed.

“I’m motivated by her work ethic,” says electrical engineering Ph.D. student Vivek Nandakumar. Meldrum is Nandakumar’s advisor for his doctoral work, and he’s involved in projects in her center supported by the National Cancer Institute.

The collaborative mindset Meldrum has encouraged and fostered among researchers from various science and engineering specialties is “mentally enriching,” Nandakumar says. And he’s impressed that despite her many duties as dean and research center director, Meldrum remains involved in the detailed guidance of his progress in the lab.  

Hansa Thompson, a microbiology major, has had a similar experience: “I was surprised she remembered that I play violin and she asked me about finding good violin teachers” for her children.

Thompson says Meldrum has inspired her to pursue a doctoral degree. “For me, it’s good to see someone like her, and know that you can have a career and be a leader in your field and still have a family. So she’s a role model for me,” she said.

Working in Meldrum’s lab “has been a phenomenal learning experience,” says Aida Mohammadreza, an undergraduate biochemistry major. “When I walked through the lab as a freshmen I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to go in, or what I was truly passionate about. But working in the lab really opened my eyes to what I wanted to do for my career.” 

She’s had the opportunity to “learn a wide range of skills and knowledge from biologists and chemists and mechanical and electrical engineers.  It’s been a well-rounded experience, and I have Dr. Meldrum to thank for that.”  

Having Meldrum as lab director, she says, “has shown all of us that there is no limit to what you can accomplish if you set your mind to it.”

Path to progress

Meldrum is mentoring Wandliz Torres-Garcia as she purses a Ph.D. in industrial engineering with a minor in bioinformatics.

Torres-Garcia says Meldrum has “provided me with a very productive environment.” That has included arranging for top ASU researchers to guide Torres-Garcia through work on her doctoral dissertation, giving her opportunities to interact with engineers and scientists in a variety of disciplines, and helping her network with experts in her field of study during a summer internship with the National Institutes of Health.

“She is an inspiration to me,” Torres-Garcia said. “She encourages me to strive for success.”

Meldrum has had a comparable impact on faculty and leaders of the engineering schools.

Her leadership “is one of the major reasons I came to ASU,” says William Ditto, director of the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering. “Her desire to spark innovation in both engineering education and research is creative and refreshing. I appreciate the freedom she gave to our faculty, students and staff to build and innovative model for biomedical engineering.”

Paul Westerhoff, who directed the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment during some of Meldrum’s years as dean, recalls her efforts to encourage faculty “to go beyond simply doing research to championing a field of research. She always encouraged the schools’ leadership team to push the boundaries of commonly accepted fact and to look for new opportunities, and she tried to swiftly guide faculty and staff onto that path.”

Building relationships

Meldrum also proved exceptional in relating to donors to the engineering schools. “She’s a dynamic, gifted relationship builder,” said Chong Porter, director of the Development Office. “She listens closely, thinks big and acts fast, and people respond positively to her drive to improve education for our students.”

Meldrum helped initiate the Engineering Staff Success Program to recognize staff members for notable performance and contributions to the engineering schools.

“She had a vision to create a work environment that engages employees, recognizes their achievements and provides them opportunities for professional growth,” says Denise Felsenthal, team leader for the program. 

One of the more lasting aspects of Meldrum’s legacy as engineering dean is certain to be E2 Camp, the orientation program for incoming ASU freshmen engineering students that she helped develop. For about three days at a wooded camp in northern Arizona, groups of 200 freshmen interact with other engineering students, faculty, staff and school leaders.

“E2 Camp is now a signature component of our undergraduate experience, and something that really sets us apart from other engineering schools,” says Paul Johnson, executive dean of the engineering schools. “What is especially unique is that it is run mostly by our upper-class students for the incoming students.  Dean Meldrum has welcomed each incoming class and been directly engaged and visible at E2 Camp each year.”

Extraordinary accomplishments

Meldrum’s ties to the engineering schools won’t be severed. She will continue to be a professor of electrical engineering in the School of Electrical, Computing and Energy Engineering, and to work with engineering faculty and students in her research center.

In other words, “she will continue to be hard to keep up with, and working as many jobs at once as anyone at ASU,” said engineering professor of practice Al Filardo, Meldrum’s chief of staff during her time as dean.

“I would be surprised to find anyone else who is a dean, directs a research center, mentors students and continues to produce research papers,” Filardo said. 

On top of all that, she’s put the restructuring in motion “that gives us a visionary new model for a 21^st century engineering school,” he adds. “Altogether, I’d say this qualifies as phenomenal achievement.”