Photo Credit: Texas A&M University System
The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents named Dr. M. Katherine Banks as the sole finalist for the position of president of Texas A&M University on March 3.
“This is a tremendous honor,” Banks says. “The core values of Texas A&M, its rich traditions, unique culture, and commitment to the greater good are the very foundation of this great university and resonate deeply with me. I hope to build upon that framework in our pursuit of preeminence, without losing what makes Texas A&M so special. Texas A&M is one of a kind, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
Banks is currently vice chancellor of Engineering and National Laboratories and dean of the Texas A&M College of Engineering.
In these roles, she spurs unprecedented growth in the College of Engineering while also being a pivotal leader in some of the Texas A&M System’s greater accomplishments, including recruiting the Army Futures Command to the RELLIS Campus and winning a federal contract to help manage Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Chancellor John Sharp recommended Banks as sole finalist and the board approved. Under state law, regents name a finalist for at least 21 days before making the appointment at a subsequent meeting.
"The Board was excited to know the search yielded tremendous interest and many qualified candidates,” says Elaine Mendoza, chairman of the Board of Regents. “This speaks to the stellar reputation, credibility and positive momentum of Texas A&M University. The board is confident that Dr. Banks will lead the university to even greater heights while celebrating the traditions and spirit that make Texas A&M unique."
Banks’s decade-long record at Texas A&M prompted today’s decision, says Chancellor John Sharp.
“Where is there a dean in the U.S. who has accomplished what Dean Banks has accomplished?” Sharp asks. “If she can do for the university what she did for engineering, imagine what the university can achieve!”
Banks is a Distinguished Professor and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Banks obtained her Ph.D. at Duke University. She studied and worked at three land-grant universities before coming to Texas A&M.
When she was hired as a vice chancellor and dean in 2011, the enrollment in the College of Engineering was 11,113 students, with about 425 faculty members. Today, there are 21,250 engineering students and 710 faculty members.
That growth is intentional. Banks seeks to enhance educational delivery, expand research and teaching facilities, and improve faculty recruitment and retention.
A prodigious fundraiser, Banks doubled engineering facilities to two million square feet, including the reconstruction of the Zachry Engineering Education Complex. That 525,000 square-foot, state-of-the art facility allows for hands-on, experiential undergraduate engineering education, including a 65,000 square foot maker space.
Through her growth program, Banks increased access to qualified engineering students while reducing the number of students in each class. No engineering class has more than 100 students, and more than half of the classes do not exceed 50 students.
Banks also addressed the cost of higher education by creating engineering academies with community colleges around the state. Students are co-enrolled in Texas A&M engineering courses while taking their basics at their local community colleges. By living at home, the students can shave thousands of dollars from their education costs before transitioning to College Station.
Banks says faculty and staff engagement is critically important to the college’s success. She increased the number of faculty advisory groups and created the first engineering staff advisory council providing input to college leadership.
In addition to leading the College of Engineering at the flagship campus, Banks — as vice chancellor — also oversees engineering educational programs at seven universities throughout the A&M System, as well as three state agencies: the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, the Texas A&M Extension Service, and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI).
In 2020, engineering program research expenditures eclipsed $300 million — an all-time high — as the college transitioned from mostly small research grants to successfully securing large, multi-partner strategic opportunities.
In particular, Banks led the A&M System’s competition to manage Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 2018, a bid by the Texas A&M System, the University of California, and Battelle Memorial Institute won the management contract worth $2.5 billion per year.
A year later, Dean Banks was critical in developing the George H.W. Bush Combat Development Complex on the RELLIS Campus in Bryan, and facilitating research and testing partnerships with the Army Futures Command. The complex includes what will become the nation’s largest hypersonic testing tube, one kilometer long, and two meters wide.
Building upon engineering research expertise in hypersonics, Banks helped position the Texas A&M System to become the nation’s hypersonic research capital, as recognized by the U.S. Department of Defense’s selection of TEES to lead its national hypersonics consortium with $100 million in funding over five years.
In addition to being named president, she will retain the title of Vice Chancellor of National Laboratories and National Security Strategic Initiatives. In that role, she will continue to serve on the board of Triad National Security, LLC, which manages the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and provide oversight for the Bush Combat Development Complex at the RELLIS Campus.
Kathy and her husband Paul, a soil and crop sciences professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, have six children and four grandchildren, with a son, daughter-in-law, and son-in-law who graduated from Texas A&M.
