Dr. Ragu Athinarayanan joined the School of Engineering Technology (SOET) in July 2017.  He holds BS and MS in Electrical Engineering, and PhD in Engineering Science from Southern Illinois University.  Prior to joining SOET, Dr. Athinarayanan served in various leadership roles for 17 years as Department Head and Associate Dean.  He has provided leadership in the development of research and academic programs that are consistent with state and national priorities.  Under his leadership he has led the development of more than 20 academic programs at the graduate and undergraduate levels. 

Dr. Athinarayanan has over 55 refereed publications in the areas of modeling and control of under-actuated robotic manipulators, signal processing, and machine vision.  His research work has been published in journals such as IEEE Transactions, Intelligent Material Systems & Structures, and Intelligent Manufacturing.  He has secured more than forty grants valued at more than $8M to his credit to support research projects and for development of academic programs to enhance regional and statewide economic development efforts.  He has experience with forging strong partnerships between academia, business, industry, and state/federal agencies responding to strategic regional, state, and national workforce/economic development priorities.  He also has extensive experience with ABET and ATMAE accreditations, experience with establishing program articulations and collaborations with domestic and overseas institutions, and experience with statewide STEM Education initiatives.  For his work, he received the Excellence in Education Award by the Governor of Missouri in 2009.