Domenico Grasso (born 1955) is an American environmental engineer, currently serving as interim president of the University of Michigan since May 8, 2025.
Grasso was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on November 16, 1955,[citation needed] to Ciriaco Grasso, who immigrated from Ariano Irpino (Italy), and Tommasina Grasso (née Piracci) who was born in Boston, Massachusetts but raised in Vieste, Italy.[1]
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.[5] During 1996, Grasso was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.[6]
Smith College
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,[7] the United States' first women's college engineering program.[8] While there, he collaborated with astronaut Sally Ride on TOYChallenge, a nationwide toy design event that encouraged STEM learning for middle school students.[9]
University of Vermont
In 2005, Grasso was named the University of Vermont's dean of the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences[10] and later served as vice president for research and dean of the Graduate College.[11] While at the University of Vermont, 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.[12]
University of Delaware
Grasso began his appointment as provost at the University of Delaware in 2013.[13] While in office, he created the Division of Enrollment Management and Institute for Financial Services Analytics.[14] He also played a major role in new university programs in the humanities, arts, social sciences and entrepreneurship.[15] In 2015, Grasso launched the Community Engagement Initiative.[16]
University of Michigan
Dearborn campus
Grasso in his Dearborn office with the 2024 NCAA National Football Championship trophy on loan from Ann Arbor.
On February 15, 2018, Grasso was named the University of Michigan–Dearborn's sixth chancellor, beginning August 1, 2018.[17] On February 16, 2023, The Board of Regents voted unanimously to reappoint him to a second term.[18] He is the first University of Michigan alum to lead the university and is also a professor of public policy and sustainable engineering.[19] Grasso transitioned the university to a need-based financial aid model, and, under his leadership, UM-Dearborn implemented the “Go Blue Guarantee,” which enables Michigan residents with family incomes of $125,000 or less to attend the university tuition free. Additionally, he oversaw the shift to a block tuition system and launched an initiative that provides all new first-year students with free football season tickets at Michigan Stadium.[20]
Grasso in Lake Como leading a Michigan Alumni tour of Northern Italy in 2024.
Grasso completed the first update to the campus master plan in nearly two decades, created a bike-friendly campus environment, and initiated an annual town-gown bike ride co-led with the mayor of Dearborn. In addition to his accomplishments at the university, Grasso serves as a board member of the Metropolitan Affairs Coalition, New Detroit and the Citizens Research Council.[20]
Ann Arbor campus
On May 8, 2025, Grasso was appointed interim president of the University of Michigan by the Board of Regents, following then-president Santa Ono's resignation for the presidency at the University of Florida.[21] Grasso indicated that he would retire from the University of Michigan after a permanent president of the university assumed the office.[22] Gabriella Scarlatta, then-provost of the Dearborn campus, was appointed interim chancellor of the Dearborn campus, succeeding Grasso.[22]
Scholarship and research
Grasso's research focuses on how contaminants change and move in the environment over time, as well as processes to reduce their impacts on nature and human health.[23][24] He has also written extensively on the intersection of engineering education with the liberal arts and social sciences.[25][26]
He has authored or co-authored hundreds of journal articles, essays and reports, and was editor-in-chief of the journal Environmental Engineering Science.[27] He is the co-editor and chief contributor to the book Holistic Engineering Education: Beyond Technology (Springer 2010).[28] He has also authored the book Hazardous Waste Site Remediation (Routledge 1993)[29] and co-edited the book Hazardous Waste Management (UNESCO-ELOSS 2009).[30]
Grasso, a member of a World Bank-funded international team that started the first environmental engineering program in Argentina,[32] also chaired the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee that authored Environmental Engineering for the 21st Century: Addressing Grand Challenges and testified before the Congress of the Republic of Peru on sustainable development in Latin America.[33]
1 2 "AWWA Academic Achievement Awards"(newsletter). Association of Environmental Engineering Professors newsletter. September 1989. pp.4–5. Archived(PDF) from the original on June 9, 2020. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
↑ Grasso, Domenico; Callahan, Kara M.; Doucett, Sandra (2004). "Defining Engineering Thought"(PDF). International Journal of Engineering Education. 20 (3): 412–415. Retrieved July 17, 2019.
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