USU Engineering Dean Announces Leadership Change

Utah State University College of Engineering Dean Jagath Kaluarachchi has announced that he will step down from his leadership role, with his last day set for June 30, 2024.

Kaluarachchi made the announcement to faculty and staff on Nov. 1, expressing deep gratitude for the many years of service he dedicated to USU. He plans to transition into a teaching role before eventually embarking on retirement.

“It has been a pleasure and great honor to have served as dean of the College of Engineering for the past eight years,” he said. “Throughout this time, we have undertaken numerous exciting initiatives and developments to advance our academic and research enterprises. I extend my deep gratitude for the hard work, support and invaluable feedback from our engineering faculty and staff. Nonetheless, our work is far from complete, and it is time for a new-generation leader to step in and move the college toward new and unexplored opportunities.”

During his time as dean, Kaluarachchi led the College of Engineering through a period of sustained growth in academics and research. He doubled research awards across the college and expanded the number of active research centers to nine, including the National Science Foundation-sponsored ASPIRE Engineering Research Center for electrified transportation.

He created three endowed professorships — the first in the college — and increased the number of faculty through the Engineering Initiative legislative funding.

“Dean Kaluarachchi has been a strong and successful leader of the USU College of Engineering for years and will leave big shoes to fill,” said USU Provost Laurens Smith. “He’ll be missed by his college and the whole academic leadership team. I wish him nothing but the best in his future pursuits.”

He also led the formation of one of USU’s newest research enterprises focused on improving Utah’s earthquake resiliency. The Utah Earthquake Engineering Center was created through a successful solicitation to state lawmakers to create Utah-specific earthquake engineering solutions that protect human life and harden our urban infrastructure.

The center will provide the state’s first earthquake engineering graduate student curriculum for educating a new generation of engineers who are trained to assess and mitigate seismic risk.

In his final months as dean, Kaluarachchi will work to expand the Utah Earthquake Engineering Center into a new, custom-built headquarters that will accommodate a state-of-the-art research operation with large shaker tables for simulating seismic loads.

In 2020, Kaluarachchi secured legislative funding to create the state’s first research center focused on advanced materials. The Center for the Design & Manufacturing of Advanced Materials supports one of the state’s fastest growing sectors and provides advanced training for engineers who specialize in composite materials design and production across multiple industries.

The center also serves as a training hub for a new engineering master’s program in composite materials and structures, which Kaluarachchi helped launch alongside the new center.

Kalurachchi has been a vocal advocate of improving the on-campus experience for USU engineering students. Since 2016, he has led multiple initiatives to create new physical spaces within the college, including a dedicated student study space, the Engineering Tutoring Center, the Engineering Writing Center, The Metal Factory, The Idea Factory, the Engineering Math Resource Center, improved computer labs and much more.

As dean, Kaluarachchi prioritized student clubs and chapters and dedicated significant financial resources to expand the reach of underrepresented student organizations such as the Society of Women Engineers and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.

Through this enhanced support of extracurricular student activities, multiple student chapters in the college have won national and international competitions. In 2022, a team of electrical engineering undergrads took home a first-place win at the International Future Energy Challenge.

Under his direction, the College of Engineering added a cyber security engineering undergraduate degree program and new master’s programs in composite materials and structures, engineering education, space systems engineering, and a first-of-its-kind online aerospace engineering master’s program.

Kaluarachchi has been an active researcher in the water resources engineering community for 30 years. He holds fellow recognition from the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Environmental & Water Resources Institute. He is also a Diplomate in Water Resources Engineering, a prestigious credential bestowed by the American Academy of Water Resources Engineers. He has also received several teaching and research awards from USU, including the Robins award for Outstanding Faculty Researcher in 2007.

Colleague and fellow USU professor David Tarboton, director of the Utah Water Research Lab, has known Kaluarachchi since the early ’90s when the two were working together as assistant professors in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.

“Jagath has dedicated his career to USU at the water lab, in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and as dean,” Tarboton said. “I’ve enjoyed working with him and valued his perspective, thoughtfulness and leadership in advancing engineering and water research and education in Utah and around the world.”

Kaluarachchi has taught short courses related to hydrology, water resources and proposal writing in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He has served as a visiting professor at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

He has conducted many international development projects related to water management in arid regions such as Iraq, Ethiopia, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Palestine and Jordan, among other countries.

A native of Sri Lanka, Kaluarachchi received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, and later earned a master’s in civil engineering with an emphasis in hydrology from the University of Hong Kong. He completed his doctorate work at Virginia Tech in 1988 in environmental sciences and engineering with an emphasis on subsurface hydrology and contaminant transport.

Kaluarachchi and his wife, Indira, have called Utah their home for many years. They enjoy traveling, cooking and spending time with their two children.