Sutley Seeks to ‘Build Community’ in New Role as Engineering Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging

Elaina Sutley’s engineering career has long been about more than simply designing and building things that make the world work. She has always been interested in how the stuff that gets built affects people — and particularly people from marginalized communities.

So it makes sense, then, that after serving six years at the University of Kansas — most recently as associate professor of civil, environmental & architectural engineering — Sutley has been named Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging for the School of Engineering. She replaces Andrew Williams, who was recently appointed dean of engineering at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina.

“My research has always been focused on how engineered structures differentially impact people from underserved communities,” she said. “I worked with Andrew Williams a decent amount in this role — it’s a space I’m passionate about. When this position became open, it felt like an opportunity to take what I've been doing as a researcher and try to make a difference in the school.”

Sutley takes on leadership as KU Engineering’s Diversity & Women’s Program celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2021.

“KU Engineering has a strong tradition of supporting underrepresented students, and we are thrilled to have Professor Sutley guide this program going forward,” said Arvin Agah, Dean of Engineering. “Beyond her notable research success and outstanding teaching performance, Professor Sutley is an empathetic and thoughtful leader who will work to ensure students have every opportunity to succeed.”

Sutley earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from the University of Alabama and her doctorate in civil engineering from Colorado State. She joined KU in 2015 and conducts research on structures with an emphasis on disaster resilience and recovery. She earned a prestigious NSF CAREER Award in 2019 for her work examining the role different types of organizations play in helping a community withstand disaster. Her findings on the effects of damage from an E-F4 tornado that struck near Lawrence in 2019 were recently featured on the show "Weathered," available on PBS Terra.

At the time she received the CAREER award, Sutley said she had one group topmost in mind in her research: "The people who are most socially vulnerable are the most impacted by these events." To do the work required melding both engineering and sociology. "These are two disciplines that don't really know each other,” she said. “So I'm really grateful to build this space in the literature and knowledge base."

It’s that background that will inform her new role as associate dean, particularly after a momentous year that nationally featured a pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests and violence against Asian people — events that greatly affected her program’s constituency.

“That creates necessity for this office to welcome students, to continue that momentum and let them know those moments were seen by us, the students are seen by us,” Sutley said, “and we’re going to create an inclusive environment where everybody belongs.”

To achieve that goal, Sutley plans to do a lot of listening during her early days on the job.

“I definitely want to learn from the people across the School and create a vision from that informed position,” she said. “Part of creating a community is not me doing this job all by myself in isolation, but reaching out and working with partners across the School.”

Sutley acknowledged that the still-lingering pandemic will make those efforts more difficult. “The pandemic creates a huge challenge in approaching the new part of this title, the belonging,” she said.

She added: “I think this is a critically important moment and a critically important space that I’m excited to pursue and to build community with our students, faculty, staff, and alumni.”