Robert Kukta

Robert Kukta has been serving in the leadership of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Stony Brook University since 2015, currently as Senior Associate Dean for Education and Innovation and previously as Acting Dean and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education. Dr. Kukta established and currently leads Stony Brook’s Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) program, which brings together nearly every area of the University community to collaborate on multidisciplinary research, design, and innovation teams.  He established several other experiential learning programs including the Global Innovation Field School at the Turkana Basin Institute at Ileret, Kenya. He has been a faculty member at Stony Brook in the Department of Mechanical Engineering since 1999, where he served as Graduate Program Director and Undergraduate Program Director.  Prior to joining Stony Brook, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar of Applied Mechanics at the California Institute of Technology. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, Master’s degrees in Engineering and Applied Mathematics from Brown University, and a Ph.D. in Engineering from Brown University. He is a member of the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society and the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society.