Dr. John Harris, dean of the College of Engineering and Science at Florida Institute of Technology, will become Missouri University of Science and Technology’s provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs on Tuesday, July 1.
“Dr. John Harris brings a wealth of experience as a leader, educator and researcher, and we are thrilled to welcome him to Missouri S&T,” says Dr. Mo Dehghani, chancellor of Missouri S&T. “His visionary leadership at Florida Tech, his distinguished long service at University of Florida and his strong academic career make him exceptionally well suited to guide our academic mission and support the continued growth and excellence of our university.”
At Florida Tech, Harris serves as the academic leader for a college of 160 faculty, 24 staff members and over 3,000 students. Since becoming dean of the College of Engineering and Science in 2022, he has streamlined and modernized the faculty promotion process, served as principal investigator for a Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN) grant for enhancing educational engagement and helped secure $14 million in state funding for cybersecurity research and workforce development for local industry.
As provost, Harris will oversee S&T’s academic programs as well as university libraries, enrollment management and online learning.
“I am excited to join Chancellor Dehghani and the talented team at Missouri S&T,” says Harris. “The university’s momentum is unmistakable, and I look forward to contributing to its continued progress in academic excellence, research and student success.”
Harris succeeds Dr. Colin Potts, who served as Missouri S&T’s provost from June 2021 until retiring in May 2025.
Harris earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees, both in electrical engineering, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in computation and neural systems from California Institute of Technology. He completed a postdoctoral research fellowship with Dr. Tomaso Poggio at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, funded by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Advanced Scientific Computing.
In 1993, Harris joined the University of Florida as an assistant professor of electrical engineering. During his 29-year career at the University of Florida, he was promoted to associate professor, professor and chair of the department of electrical and computer engineering. He chaired the department for 11 years and led major gains in research funding, faculty growth and national rankings. In 2022, he joined Florida Tech as dean of the College of Engineering and Science, where he has focused on student success. Earlier this year, he was also named the university’s Allen S. Henry Chair and Professor of Engineering.
Harris is a member of the Deans Council for the American Society for Engineering Education and on the editorial board for the Scilight Press Transactions on Artificial Intelligence.
Through his research in bio-inspired computation, he has graduated 36 Ph.D. students and 21 master’s degree students, published over 200 papers, and secured over $9 million in research funding, including $3 million as principal investigator. He holds 19 patents and has taught courses in circuits, electronics, signal processing, pattern recognition, biomedical signals, speech processing, Python and a special one-credit honors course in chess.
