UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Fotis Sotiropoulos, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), will serve as Penn State’s next executive vice president and provost, effective Aug. 11.
A world-renowned researcher in computational fluid dynamics, Sotiropoulos brings more than 35 years of experience in higher education as a professor, scholar and senior academic leader. Since joining VCU in 2021, he has led a series of forward-looking initiatives aimed at preparing learners of all backgrounds for the future of work, advancing student and faculty success, championing excellence, and cultivating a culture of transdisciplinary innovation. His leadership approach has been rooted in empowering faculty and staff to surface bold ideas and develop pioneering solutions that position institutions for long-term success.
“I could not be more thrilled to welcome Fotis Sotiropoulos back to our Penn State community. Fotis is a forward-thinking leader and scientist who is prepared to help us deliver the highest value to students, create an environment that provides opportunities for growth and empowerment for all faculty and staff, and uphold and advance our university’s mission,” said Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi. “We are in a time of transformative change where we must adapt in order to continue to offer the best student experiences, meet the challenges facing higher education, and support our faculty and staff in their professional endeavors — so they in turn can support our students. Fotis cares deeply about Penn State and has the ability to bring people and perspectives together in support of our greater purpose.”
Sotiropoulos, a Penn State alumnus, was selected following a national search led by an 18-member committee, co-chaired by Michael Wade Smith, senior vice president and chief of staff, and Marie Hardin, dean of the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, with assistance from the search firm WittKieffer.
“Arriving from Greece as a first-generation student, State College was my gateway to the United States and to the transformative power of a Penn State education,” Sotiropoulos said. “The opportunity to return to my alma mater — an institution that played such a pivotal role in my journey — is both an honor and a deeply meaningful homecoming. Having once walked these halls as a student, I am deeply aware of Penn State’s academic excellence, its land-grant mission, and its unwavering commitment to impact. The University’s mission to advance teaching, research and public service aligns fully with my own dedication to student success, academic innovation, and interdisciplinary research that improves lives.”
Among his key accomplishments at VCU, Sotiropoulos worked collaboratively with academic leaders, faculty, and staff to:
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design and implement a comprehensive enrollment and student success strategy that reversed a decade-long enrollment decline and increased retention rates to historic highs while closing equity gaps;
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promote transdisciplinary research by establishing innovative virtual consortia, the VCU Convergence Labs, enabling faculty across the university to organize around emerging research areas of major societal relevance;
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develop a new college, the Academy of Interdisciplinary Innovation (AI2), dedicated to scaling the design and delivery of interdisciplinary degrees in emerging fields and embedding experiential, real-world, and entrepreneurial learning across all disciplines;
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launch the new School of Life Sciences and Sustainability;
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develop a wide range of new curricular offerings designed to make students of all disciplines AI literate;
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expand engagement of undergraduates in research;
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stabilize the academic budget during a period of financial strain; and
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drive a 39% increase in sponsored research funding — culminating in a historic high for sponsored research at the university.
The Penn State search committee highlighted Sotiropoulos’ visionary leadership style, focus on pursuing excellence, and commitment to the success of all students, faculty and staff, along with experience in enrollment growth, strategic planning and curriculum transformation, research innovation, and resource management and operational efficiency among the factors that made him the ideal candidate to serve as provost. Along with the search committee and senior direct reports, Penn State’s deans; chancellors; vice presidents; institute leaders and associate deans for research; Evan Pugh Professors; student government organizations; and Faculty Senate, University Staff Advisory Council and Graduate Council leadership had the opportunity to meet with Sotiropoulos during the process.
“Contributing to the institution that launched my career and shaped my life is a privilege,” Sotiropoulos said. “I am excited to join President Bendapudi’s leadership team and work with Penn State’s remarkable academic leads, faculty, staff and students to take the University to new heights of excellence and impact. This is a pivotal moment for higher education, and Penn State is uniquely positioned not just to navigate these challenges, but to lead — and to define what the future of a world-class, land-grant, public research university looks like.”
As chief academic officer, reporting directly to the president, Sotiropoulos will work in close partnership with deans, chancellors, faculty, and staff across the University, and set and lead the University’s academic priorities. He will oversee efforts to strengthen teaching excellence, support graduate and undergraduate student success, and drive innovation in learning and academic programming. In the role, Sotiropoulos will oversee all academic units, including colleges and campuses, and major academic support units such as University Libraries, Student Affairs and Educational Equity, among others, and will serve as a member of the President’s Council, the chair of the Academic Leadership Council, and as an ex-officio member of the University Faculty Senate and Senate Council.
Prior to his position at VCU, Sotiropoulos was the dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS) and served as interim provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Stony Brook University. In his five years as dean of CEAS, Sotiropoulos led the college to grow academic excellence, increase student quality, diversity and success, grow research expenditures by 57%, and advance innovative project-based learning opportunities for students across multiple disciplines. He also partnered with academic leaders and faculty to launch the Institute for Engineering-Driven Medicine and the Institute for AI-driven Discovery and Innovation.
Among his previous roles, Sotiropoulos served as the James L. Record Professor of Civil, Environmental and Geo-Engineering; director of the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory; and director of the EOLOS Wind Energy Research Consortium at the University of Minnesota. He also was a faculty member at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, with a joint appointment in the G. W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
A pioneer in his field, Sotiropoulos has made fundamental contributions in fluid mechanics in the areas of turbulence, vortex dynamics, flow-structure interactions and chaotic dynamics. At the nexus of his work is the integration of cutting-edge numerical simulation coupled with laboratory and field experiments to address and solve real-life problems in areas such as wind and tidal energy systems, river restoration, extreme flooding risk assessment and mitigation, hydrodynamics of fish swimming, and hemodynamics of heart valves. His computational tools are used in industry to optimize wind farms and in-stream and tidal turbine arrays, restore rivers and streams, and assess and mitigate the risk of extreme river flooding, among other applications.
Sotiropoulos is a highly cited scientist around the world, authoring more than 215 peer reviewed journal papers and book chapters, and has raised more than $40 million as lead principal investigator on a number of sponsored grants from federal agencies and industry, including the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation.
In 2023, Sotiropoulos was awarded the Fluids Engineering Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for his significant interdisciplinary contributions to fluids engineering. Among other honors, he was awarded the Borland Lecture in Hydraulics Award from the American Geophysical Union Hydrology Days and the American Society of Civil Engineers Hunter-Rouse Hydraulic Engineering Prize for advancements in the development and application of computational fluid dynamics for waterways. He was named a State University of New York (SUNY) Distinguished Professor and is the recipient of an Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation.
He was a member of the high-fidelity modeling national panel convened by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy within the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop and implement the strategic vision for DOE’s Atmosphere to Electrons (A2e) wind energy research center, aimed at reducing the cost of wind energy. He is also a 2014 distinguished lecturer of the Mortimer and Raymond Sackler Institute of Advanced Studies at Tel Aviv University.
Sotiropoulos is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Physical Society. He has served on a number of editorial boards, including the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Journal of Biomechanical Engineering and American Society of Civil Engineers Journal of Hydraulic Engineering.
Sotiropoulos earned a diploma in mechanical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, a master’s in aerospace engineering from Penn State, and a doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Cincinnati.
Tracy Langkilde, who assumed interim leadership in April 2024, will continue to serve as interim executive vice president and provost through the transition on August 11.
“I want to extend my deepest gratitude to Tracy Langkilde, who has served admirably as our interim provost over the past year. In a critical time, Tracy stepped up for Penn State and for our students, faculty and staff, and she has continued to show up every day to advance critical academic, research, student success, graduate education, and retention priorities during this transitional and transformative time for the University,” Bendapudi said. “The entire leadership team is extremely appreciative of her dedication and commitment. I am honored she is a member of our academic leadership team, and I look forward to continuing to work closely with her for the benefit of Penn State.”