Domenico Grasso is an American engineer, professor and the sixth chancellor of the University of Michigan–Dearborn. He has previously served as provost of the University of Delaware, vice president for research and dean of two different colleges at the University of Vermont. Grasso is Smith College's Picker Engineering Program's founding director.
Grasso joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in 1989. He later served as department head from 1998 to 2000. During 1996, Grasso was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley. In 2000, he declined a chair position at Columbia University to become the Smith College's Rosemary Bradford Hewlett Professor, where he became the Picker Engineering Program's first director, the United States' first women's college engineering program. While there, he collaborated with astronaut Sally Ride on TOYChallenge, a nationwide toy design event that encouraged STEM learning for middle school students. In 2005, Grasso was named the University of Vermont's dean of the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences and later served as vice president for research and dean of the Graduate College. While at UVM, he established the university-wide Complex Systems Center and initiated efforts to broaden engineering education to more intentionally include the liberal arts and social sciences, including the creation of a B.A. program in engineering and a B.S. in engineering science. Grasso began his appointment as provost at the University of Delaware in 2013. While in office, he created the Division of Enrollment Management and Institute for Financial Services Analytics. He also played a major role in new university programs in the humanities, arts, social sciences and entrepreneurship. On February 15, 2018, Grasso was named the University of Michigan–Dearborn's sixth chancellor, beginning August 1, 2018. As the first University of Michigan alum to lead the university, he is also a professor of public policy and sustainable engineering and is an executive officer of the University of Michigan. Among the honors and awards received by Grasso are the AWWA National Doctoral Dissertation Award; being elected Fellow of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors; the Association for Environmental Health and Sciences Foundation Career Achievement Award; the John Cabot University Education Excellence Award; the Robert H. Goddard Alumni Award for Outstanding Professional Achievement, WPI; the Water Environment Federation Disinfection Pioneer Award.
Grasso is married to the former Susan Jean Hull, a University of Michigan engineering alumna, with whom he has four adult children: Benjamin, Jacob, Elspeth and Caitlin.
