Reginald DesRoches – affectionately known as “Dean Reggie” – began his term as the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering at Rice University in 2017. He previously served as Georgia Tech’s Chair of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and raised in Queens, New York City, DesRoches says his love of science and math led him to pursue a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Berkeley. He was there in 1989 when the San Francisco area was hit with a magnitude 6.9 earthquake, and witnessed firsthand the damage to the infrastructure of the Bay Area.
He earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 1998.