Dr. Jon C. Strauss

Biography

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

B.S., University of Wisconsin, 1959
M.S., University of Pittsburgh, 1962
Ph.D., Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1965

Strauss has just been named Interim Dean of Engineering at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Previously, he was President of Bainbridge Graduate Institute which pioneers the MBA in Sustainable Business on Bainbridge Island, WA. He is President Emeritus of Harvey Mudd College, a highly ranked liberal arts college of engineering, science, and mathematics, where he served as its fourth president from 1997 until 2006.

He served as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He is also President Emeritus of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, and served as Senior Vice President of Administration at the University of Southern California where he also was a tenured professor of electrical engineering. He was Vice President for Budget and Finance at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and also served as a professor of computer science at that institution and at Washington University in St. Louis, the Technical University of Norway, and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Strauss has published and spoken widely, consulted for a wide variety of colleges, universities, and corporations, and served on the Boards of a number of corporations and professional and community organizations.

His professional interests include organizational development and planning, modeling and performance enhancement, sustainability and decentralized management in higher education, and sustainable energy. .

Straus was appointed to the National Science Board In 2004 where he has led two important task forces on international science and sustainable energy and chairs the Subcommittee on Polar Issues. .

He lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with his wife, Jean, an award winning author, documentarian, open adoption records activist, and competitive rower. They have two sons: Kristoffer, an MBA student at the Drucker School of Management, and Jonathon, a senior at Penn. Strauss also has two daughters, Susan and Stephanie, from a previous marriage. .

July 2009.