Rubén Del Rosario, D.Eng

Dr. Rubén Del Rosario serves the College of Aeronautics and Engineering (CAE) as the Director of the Center for Advanced Air Mobility (CAAM) and Professor. In these roles, he spearheads the continuing development of the Center for Advanced Air Mobility (CAAM) as the premiere venue for faculty and students to engage. He leverages the center’s achievements to create new opportunities while harnessing CAE’s ability to provide students with hands-on, real-world experience for its students in preparation for the future of aviation and advanced air mobility (AAM).

Dr. Del Rosario joined Kent State after a distinguished career in aerospace. He most recently served as Vice President of Aerospace & Advanced Transportation at Crown Consulting Inc. In this role, he directed Crown services in advanced air mobility and aerospace systems development and engineering with an emphasis on forging research and development partnerships across industry and government agencies.

Prior to Crown, he spent 29-year at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) John. H. Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, where he last served as Director of Aeronautics. During his tenure at NASA he provided executive leadership for aeronautics research and development programs and projects in support of the agency’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD), overseeing annual budgets of more than $150 million.

A renowned expert in advanced propulsion systems and as manager of the NASA ARMD’s Advanced Air Transport Technology Project, Del Rosario developed and executed NASA's strategy for commercial subsonic aircraft technologies research and pioneered the development of national strategies for advancing the electrification of aircraft propulsion systems.

Del Rosario was awarded the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal and the ARMD Associate Administrator Award for Leadership and Management Excellence. He is a fellow of The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and a lifetime member of the Society of Hispanic Professionals Engineers (SHPE).

He holds a Doctorate in Engineering (Industrial and Systems Engineering) and Master of Science in Industrial Engineering from Cleveland State University and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez. He also completed the Senior Executive Fellow Program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.