Alan Cramb

Background

About Alan Cramb

Alan William Cramb is currently President Emeritus and a Trustee Emeritus at the Illinois Institute of Technology where he was President from 2015 until 2021. He joined IIT in 2008 as Provost and was also the Charles and Lee Finkl Professor of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering. As President, he was responsible for the largest fundraising campaign in the history of the institution, stabilized finances, increased the endowment, and reduced overall debt while building the Kaplan Institute and renovating student housing to improve the undergraduate experience on campus. Upon retiring as President, he was appointed as a Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering until May 2024, when he retired as an academic. Alan was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2014 and to the National Academy of Inventors in 2015. He won the Bessemer Gold Medal in 2016.Alan received his BS in Metallurgy from Strathclyde University, Glasgow, in 1975, his Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1979, and subsequently spent 7 years managing research within the steel industry. In 1986 he joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and in 1990 became the co-director of the Center for Iron and Steelmaking. In 1997 he was awarded the Posco Chair. In he became Head of the Materials Science and Engineering Department. In 2005 Alan was appointed the Dean of Engineering and the John A. Clark and Edward T. Crossan Professor of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is the author of over 200 publications and 2 patents. He received the AISI Medal in 1985 and 1986, the Robert Woolston Hunt Award of AIME in 1987, and the Benjamin Fairless Award of AIME in 2003. Alan was the President of the Iron and Steel Society in and was President of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum Engineers (AIME) in 2005. He is a Distinguished Member or Fellow of AIST, AIME, ASM, and the Iron and Steel Society of Japan (ISIJ).Specialties: University Administration, Engineering, Fundraising, Materials Science, Steel Production, Continuous Casting of Steel, Extractive Metallurgy, Chemical Metallurgy, Solidification