Dean’s Leadership Council

As the College of Arts, Sciences, and Education Dean’s Leadership Council, we are a core group of alumni and friends dedicated to helping the vice provost and dean strengthen the growth of the college, transform the student experience, and improve the impact of faculty involvement. We provide support to the Dean’s Fund,  strengthening the impact of philanthropy at the college-wide level, and help identify philanthropic opportunities with fellow alumni, corporations, and friends at S&T. Through our guidance, innovation, and financial commitment, we provide strong leadership to the vice provost and dean, as well as the College, and serve as inspiring role models to the university community.

The Dean’s Leadership Council also annually awards the CASE Dean’s Medal.

Board Members

Executive Committee

Carl Schmitz, Chair

IST’10, Manager of IT Systems at Boeing

View biography

Carl Schmitz, IST’10, is an information technology manager at Boeing. He is from the St. Louis area and still lives there. He is the deputy executive focal for Boeing’s relationship with Missouri S&T. While at Missouri S&T, he helped establish the university’s chapter of Phi Beta Lambda and was the chapter’s founding president. He served on the Career Opportunities and Employer Relations Advisory Council, the Business and Information Technology Student Advisory Board, was a student ambassador for the Center for Enterprise Resource Planning, and participated in an international ERP Simulation Competition. He is currently co-chair of the Miner Alumni Association’s New Alumni Council and a member of the Miner Alumni Association board of directors and the Order of the Golden Shillelagh. He also volunteers with the Youth & Family Center in downtown St. Louis. He received the Robert V. Wolf Alumni Service Award in 2015, and makes himself frequently present to students.

 

Major General Samuel C. "Bo" Mahaney, Vice Chair

Hist'85, Major General for U.S. Air Force

View biography

Maj. Gen. Samuel "Bo" Mahaney is a retired Air Force officer with 36 years of military service. Prior to retirement, he was Chief of Staff, Air Mobility Command, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. His efforts enabled the AMC commander to provide rapid, global mobility and sustainment for America's armed forces as well as provide humanitarian support at home and around the world. He enabled the 107,000 men and women of AMC to provide airlift, aerial refueling, special air mission, aeromedical evacuation, and mobility support. Maj. Gen. Mahaney was commissioned in July 1985 as a graduate of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. He has served as a B-52 electronic warfare officer, KC-10 aircraft commander, C-5 pilot, C-9A evaluator pilot, group and wing commander, and flew the C-17 and KC-135. He was last qualified as a C-40 pilot. He is a command pilot with more than 5,100 flying hours. In addition, he attended Harvard University as National Security Fellow, served on Capitol Hill as Georgetown Legislative Fellow and legislative liaison. He is a licensed attorney who has served on the faculty of Georgetown University Law Center and an adjunct professor. In retirement, Maj. Gen Mahaney is an author of historical fiction, novels, and peer review historical journal articles. His passion is for leadership education, working with teens and young adults to create a vision for their leadership role in the present and the future.

Nathan Ayres, Secretary

Marketing & Communications Manager at Brewer Science

View biography

Nathan Ayres, MBA'16, is manager of marketing and communications at Brewer Science. Nathan earned bachelor of science degrees in nuclear engineering and engineering management from S&T in 2007. While at S&T, Nathan was a leader in the American Nuclear Society and Christian Campus Fellowship, as well as held a reactor operators license for the S&T nuclear research reactor on campus. Nathan currently serves on the Marketing Advisory Committee with Geared For Phelps and the Marketing Advisory Team for Rolla Technical Institute. He and his wife, Christina, who earned a masters degree in math from S&T, with their two children, Carissa and Noah, enjoy their hobby farm with their dogs, chickens, ducks, and Greta the goose. 

Dr. Casey Burton, Member-at-Large

Chem’13, PhD Chem’17, Director of Health Innovation & Policy

View biography

Casey Burton (Chem’13, PhD Chem’17), is the Director of Health Innovation & Policy at Phelps Health and an Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at Missouri S&T. His research aims at the development and application of advanced analytical techniques for healthcare diagnostics, including early cancer detection and traumatic brain injury. He currently leads the research and governmental affairs programs at Phelps Health. He servs on a number of research and non-profit boards to strengthen the state’s research enterprise and ability to improve the health and wellness of Missourians. He was recognized as a Missouri S&T Distinguished Young Alumni in 2020. He and his wife, Hannah, have one son, Henry.

Diane Butrus, Member-at-Large

CSci’85, COO of Diba Imports

View biography

Diane Butrus, CSci’85, is chief operating officer of Diba Imports, a footwear distributor. She is from the St. Louis area and lives there now. A founding member of the S&T Academy of Miner Athletics, she played for the Lady Miner softball team as a student. Diane has served on the board of her condominium association for over three years, and was president for two of those years. She led the finance committee of Explore Transplant, a nonprofit organization committed to kidney transplant education. She spends most of her free time bicycling, and participates in multiple charity rides a year. She drives a Tesla Model S and says she is “thrilled to hear Rolla is getting a supercharging station!” Diane lives with her girlfriend, Me’Shel Riedel, and occasionally Me’Shel’s son Alex, who is a freshman at Washington University in St. Louis studying architecture.

 

General board members

J. Michael Evans

ME’67, retired from Consolidated Edison Company of New York

View biography

Mike Evans, ME67, has good memories of his Rolla days when he was editor of the Rollamo and active in several student organizations. Upon graduation he worked for AT&T, then completed four years in the U.S. Navy’s nuclear submarine program. Evans then joined Combustion Engineering and Kansas City Power and Light Co., where he was senior vice president and COO. From there he joined Consolidated Edison of New York for nine years and was president and COO. Evans then served as president and CEO of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations in Atlanta before retiring in 2004. Evans is a member of S&T’s Academy of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineers and received an Award of Professional Distinction in 2004. He and his wife, Linda, established the Mike and Linda Evans Dean’s Endowed Scholarship Fund in 2019 to support Missouri students with financial needs in CASE or with dual majors in CASE and the College of Engineering and Computing.

Dr. Hannah Frye

Chem’15, Senior Policy Advisor for Massachusetts Institute of Technology

View biography

Hannah Frye is the Senior Policy Advisor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Washington Office, covering biomedical and biotechnology federal policy issues for the institute. In addition, Dr. Frye coordinates the MIT Washington Office’s relationships with student and alumni science policy groups. Dr. Frye earned her Bachelor of Science from Missouri S&T in chemistry with a biochemistry emphasis along with a minor in biological sciences in 2015, and her doctoral degree in neuroscience from Washington University in St. Louis in 2021. While a student at Missouri S&T, she was a leader in the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) design team and in the campus residential life community. After defending her thesis at WashU, Dr. Frye joined the California Council of Science and Technology science policy fellowship, where she was placed in the California State Senate Committee on Business, Professions, and Economic Development to assist the State Senate in analyzing bills related to clinical laboratories, healthcare professional licensing, cannabis law, and economic development initiatives. In addition to her work for MIT, Dr. Frye also serves as Director of Programs and Events for the Journal of Science Policy and Governance and is an active volunteer with the Edgewood Community Farm in her local neighborhood. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband, Nathaniel Franklin (Missouri S&T ME’16) and cat, Felicette (named after the first cat in space).

 

 

Dr. Paula Lutz

Chem’76, Professor and Academic Administrator, Retired

View biography

Paula is a retired college professor and administrator who is both an alumna and a former faculty member of UMR/MO S&T.  She holds a B.S. in Chemistry with a Life Science Preference from UMR (1976) and a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from Duke University (1981) with research interests in immunochemistry, cancer immunology, and immunotoxicology.  

After post-doctoral fellowships at the University of North Carolina and Duke University, she began her academic career at the University of Missouri-Rolla.  She spent twenty years on the faculty there in Biological Sciences (1987-2007) earning the rank of full professor while winning more than a dozen outstanding teaching and faculty excellence awards.  She was the P.I. on a series of NIH RO1 grants over a fifteen year period; these collaborative, interdisciplinary projects focused on investigating the effects of lead on children’s immune systems.  Her administrative career there included Associate Dean for Graduate Affairs and Research, Chair of Biological Sciences, and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (UMR’s first woman dean).  She has had a long-standing interest in encouraging diversity in STEM disciplines; she was involved in a Women’s Leadership Institute, taught a “Women as Global Leaders” class, and helped to found UMR’s Expanding Your Horizons program. 

In 2007, she moved her family to Bozeman, MT, to take the position of Dean of the College of Letters and Science and Professor of Cell Biology and Neuroscience at Montana State University.  As dean at MSU, she maintained her interest in mentoring on their NSF ADVANCE grant advisory committee, established the New Faculty Forum for first and second year faculty members, and helped to create DEAL (Developing Excellence in Academic Leaders) for aspiring campus leaders.  While at MSU, she actively supported the recruitment and retention of Native American students, chairing the Native American Education Advisory Board (NAEAB).  She served as the P.I. on the $14.9M NIH C06 construction grant to renovate MSU’s Cooley Labs for biomedical research, and as P.I. on MSU’s NIH ‘Bridges to the Baccalaureate’ grant for Tribal College students.

In 2013, she became Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Zoology and Physiology at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, WY.  Leadership development and networking continued to be a focus for her as she participated in the 2015 Leadership Wyoming class for leaders in all fields across the state.  She developed “UW LEAD” as an internal leadership program for department heads and associate/assistant deans from all campus units as well as a New Faculty Forum in her own college.  During her time as dean, she served on the Board of the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences and on the Finance Committee for the American Association of Immunologists. 

In July of 2020, Paula and her spouse Len Lutz (B.S. and M.S. Metallurgical Engineering, 1976 and 2007) retired and moved back home to Missouri where they are enjoying retirement to the fullest!  They are the parents of two daughters—Lauren and Alyson (St. Louis and San Mateo, CA, respectively)—and two ‘furry children’.  She enjoys reading, hiking, music, photography, gardening, and vacationing on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

 

 

Dr. Dave Westenberg

Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor of biological sciences

View biography

Dave Westenberg, Ph.D., is Curators Distinguished Teaching Professor of Biological Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from the University of California, Los Angeles. Westenberg has been an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in Goettingen and Marburg, Germany and a U.S. Department of Agriculture postdoctoral fellow at Dartmouth College. He co-directed the Missouri S&T Science Education and Quantitative Literacy professional development program for K-12 teachers, and has taught teacher workshops for the BioBuilder Foundation and HHMI Biointeractive. Westenberg has received numerous awards for teaching and advising, including the Class of ’42 Alumni Excellence in Teaching Award, the Missouri S&T Alumni Association Outstanding Advisor Award, the 2017 Science Educator Award from the Academy of Sciences, St. Louis, the American Society for Microbiology Carski Award for undergraduate education, and the UM System President’s Award for Community Engagement.