Rob Rutenbar is Wayne State University’s 2026 Distinguished Engineer

Rob Rutenbar, senior vice chancellor for research at the University of Pittsburgh, earned the 2026 Distinguished Engineer from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at his alma mater Wayne State University. The annual award will be given during the school’s Night of the Stars event, where its most distinguished alums are celebrated.

As senior vice chancellor, Rutenbar directs Pitt Research, which supports the full breadth of the University’s research enterprise — from pursuing and securing funding, through ensuring adherence to the highest standards of research conduct, to building collaborations that lead to successful commercialization.

In the past 10 years, he’s launched several initiatives, including the Pitt Momentum Funds, which support large-scale team science, and Pitt Big Proposal Bootcamp, which educates faculty about the unique logistics of securing center- and institute-scale external support. He has rebuilt and modernized key components of the University’s policy ecosystem, including the conflict of interest and intellectual property policies.