Dr. Eric T. Baumgartner is the Vice President of Academics at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) and provides strategic leadership across the units that support MSOE’s academic mission. Previously, he was the Dean of the T. J. Smull College of Engineering and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Ohio Northern University (ONU) for eleven years. Prior to joining ONU, Dr. Baumgartner spent ten years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where he held a number of technical and management positions including a leadership role on the Mars Exploration Rover project that successfully launched, landed and operated the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on the Martian surface. He was honored with the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in 2004 for his efforts on the Mars rover project and, in May 2008, Dr. Baumgartner, along with two of his colleagues at JPL, was presented with the 2008 IEEE Robotics and Automation Award. Dr. Baumgartner holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Notre Dame, a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Cincinnati, a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Notre Dame and a certificate from the Institute for Educational Management at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.