Kelly Rusch
Dr. Kelly A. Rusch is Professor in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at North Dakota State University (NDSU) and the former Executive Director of the North Dakota (ND) EPSCoR State Office. As Executive Director, Dr. Rusch oversaw ND EPSCoR’s programming focused on building statewide STEM capacity in education, workforce development, research, outreach, and public communications. Kelly also served as the Project Director/Principal Investigator for ND’s NSF EPSCoR RII Track-1 and currently serves as the ND Principal Investigator on the NSF INCLUDES CIRCLES (Cultivating Indigenous Research Communities for Leadership in Education and STEM) Alliance; a six-state (all EPSCoR) effort focused on native-based STEM activities for K12 and higher education. Dr. Rusch currently serves on the Board of Directors of the EPSCoR Foundation and as the Co-Chair for the NSF Committee on the Future of NSF EPSCoR. She is a past chair of the NSF EPSCoR Project Directors Council. From 2013-2018, Dr. Rusch served as the Vice President for Research and Creative Activity at NDSU. Prior to NDSU, Dr. Rusch was a faculty member and administrator at Louisiana State University. She earned her bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (1986) and her master’s (1989) and doctorate (1992) in civil engineering from Louisiana State University. Kelly is a registered professional engineer in Louisiana, a board certified environmental engineer, and an ABET program evaluator for environmental engineering.