ASME Fellow Jayathi Murthy Named President of Oregon State University

Oregon State University’s Board of Trustees voted to confirm Jayathi Y. Murthy, Ph.D., as the university’s next president. Murthy will step into her new position at OSU in September 2022.

She will be the first-ever woman of color to lead Oregon’s largest public university.

Murthy served as dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of California Los Angeles, where she’s the first woman to hold that position. She’s also a professor in UCLA’s mechanical and aerospace department.

“This is the right place and right time,” Murthy said. “I am very impressed by Oregon State University. OSU is well-positioned to address the many challenges in how higher education will be best provided in the years ahead thanks to the university’s excellent faculty, staff and leaders, and its commitment to student success, inclusive excellence and its long experience and leadership in online education.”

Dr. Murthy has been an active member of ASME since 1999. She has been a member of ASME’s Technical Committee on Publications and Communications, and recently completed a three-year term on the ASME Committee on Honors. In 2016, she was a recipient of the ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award.  
“Dr. Murthy is the right person and leader to guide this remarkable university that is enjoying tremendous momentum,” OSU board chair Kirk Schueler said in a statement. “Under Dr. Murthy’s leadership, OSU’s incredible impact in Oregon, nationally and globally, and the university’s commitment and progress in advancing diversity, equity and inclusive excellence will grow.”

Murthy said she’s confident that Oregon State can be a national leader coming out of the pandemic. And she said that under her leadership the university will invest more in research infrastructure.

At UCLA’s engineering school, one of Murthy’s top priorities was expanding access to underrepresented groups. That’s something she’ll be taking with her to OSU, she said.

“Advancing diversity, equity and inclusion is a deeply held conviction of mind and is central to my work as an educator and administrator,” Murthy said. “As an engineer, I have often been the only woman in the room since I was 16.”