Sallie Keller-McNulty: From Outsider to Engineer

When changes need to be made, most experts will advise consulting an outsider. Sallie Keller-McNulty certainly fit that description as one of the 200 people contacted during the search for Rice’s next dean of engineering. “It’s a rare thing to have statisticians in a school of engineering,” Keller-McNulty says. “You know, the press has made a big deal out of the fact that Rice is the only university in the country to have women as deans of both natural sciences and engineering. That’s not the real story, though. The real story is that Rice made the bold move of hiring a statistician to be dean of engineering.”

Keller-McNulty has been particularly successful at engineering change during her career. Prior to coming to Rice, she spent more than seven years leading the statistical sciences group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. During her tenure, the staff more than tripled, and the budget of the group quadrupled. Having spent a significant part of her career in academia, Keller-McNulty found her leadership role at Los Alamos “thrilling.”

Sallie Keller-McNulty

“A lot of people say, ‘You’re a born manager,’ and I find that a really offensive remark,” Keller-McNulty says. “I think it’s possible to learn management. What’s harder to learn is leadership. The ability to lead as both a scientist and a manager is rare, but it’s what you need if you’re going to set the scientific tone and direction for an organization.”

It was Keller-McNulty’s proven leadership ability that appealed most to the search committee at Rice. “After Rice hired Sallie, I pulled out the original list that we worked up of the characteristics that we wanted in a dean,” explains Kathleen Matthews, dean of the Wiess School of Natural Sciences and chair of the search committee that hired Keller-McNulty. “Check. Check. Check. Down the list. We spent a lot of time describing the type of person we wanted, and Sallie truly is that person.”

Judging from her primary ambition as dean, Keller-McNulty does not think small. “I want to change the university culture at Rice,” she says. Already, she has initiated a strategic planning exercise among faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends of the school of engineering.

“In Los Alamos lingo, the survival unit in a university organization always has been the individual faculty member,” Keller-McNulty explains. “But in science today, that cliché about being greater than the sum of your parts really applies. Each department must be more than the sum of its parts, and the school must be more than a collection of departments. We all, ultimately, are part of the same institution, and if we grow and are successful together, we will, in the end, have more resources to share together.”

Going to the next level means knowing what that next level is, Keller-McNulty says. “As we move toward solving the grand scientific and engineering challenges, we need to hold on to the fundamentals and foundations of engineering. Keeping that balance is itself a challenge, but it’s critically important in interdisciplinary work. When the building blocks come together, all should share the credit—the last little result shouldn’t get all the glory.”