UC Davis Alum Will Lead UC Merced School of Engineering
UC Davis alum Mark Matsumoto has been named dean of the UC Merced School of Engineering, an appointment that becomes effective Sept. 1. He’ll leave his current position as associate dean for research and graduate education at UC Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering, where he also serves as a professor in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering.
Matsumoto earned his master’s degree (1980) and PhD (’82), both in civil engineering, at UC Davis, after having obtained his undergraduate degree at UC Irvine. He then spent 11 years at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he established and directed a new environmental science program.
He joined the UC Riverside faculty in 1994, and during the next two decades embraced numerous leadership roles: interim dean of the Bourns College of Engineering, associate dean for undergraduate academic affairs, chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and chair of the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering.
He also has strong ties to UC Merced and its School of Engineering, having served as a member of the Campus Planning Committee during the university’s formative years, from 2000 to ’03. He assisted in the selection of academic majors, the creation of an academic administrative structure, and the hiring of senior administrative leadership. He also took a six-month leave of absence from UC Riverside in 2010, in order to serve as interim dean of the UC Merced School of Engineering, during a transitional period.
Matsumoto’s research has focused on the development, design and analysis of engineering systems to improve and/or protect environmental quality. He has conducted numerous investigations involving land treatment systems for municipal and industrial wastewater; and sludge treatment and co-disposal with solid wastes, by land spreading and composting, primary effluent filtration, and fed-batch biological treatment of hazardous wastes. Recent efforts have concerned the remediation of soils contaminated by heavy metals — particularly lead, cadmium and arsenic — to minimize detrimental effects to underlying groundwater.
Matsumoto is a member of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AAEES), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). He is a widely published author and co-author of textbooks, technical articles and research reports, and has served on numerous scientific review panels — concerning remedial strategies for hazardous waste sites — for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences, the Department of Defense, and various state agencies in California and New York.
