Chancellor Martin Inducted into The Citadel’s Academy of Engineers

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (May 23, 2025) — For outstanding leadership and advances in engineering and education over the past four decades, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Chancellor James R. Martin II has been inducted into The Citadel School of Engineering’s Academy of Engineers.

The Citadel Academy of Engineers honors engineering leaders from both the public and private sectors who have enjoyed substantial success in their professional lives and made significant contributions to their communities.

The careers of Martin and his fellow inductees — Carlos J. Coe, Steven W. Roll and the late William States Lee – exemplify The Citadel School of Engineering’s mission, which is to educate and develop principled engineering leaders to serve a global community. Additionally, each embodies The Citadel’s core values of honor, duty and respect by building the reputation of engineering education excellence, modeling responsibility for student-centered success and giving mutual respect in The Citadel’s inclusion of all students.

“We are honored to have such distinguished alumni recognized for their outstanding engineering leadership,” said Andrew Williams, Ph.D., dean of the School of Engineering. “We are excited to induct a university chancellor, entrepreneurs, leaders, and to posthumously induct an 1894 engineering graduate who made an enormous impact as a co-founder of the company that became Duke Energy.”

Martin credited his experience at The Citadel, which he called the toughest test of his life at that point, for helping him set the trajectory of his future.

“I think it’s at those times when we have to dig down beyond our everyday selves that we have the opportunity to either step up and get bigger or sort of shrink and turn away. And so I’m thankful that I stepped up and got bigger,” he said, noting the lesson “has served me every single day of my life.”

See Martin speak at The Citadel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6azZm3Guslw

Martin was elected 13th chancellor of N.C. A&T on June 21, 2024, by a unanimous vote of the University of North Carolina System Board of Governors. He previously served as vice chancellor for STEM Research and Innovation at the University of Pittsburgh, where he drove initiatives ranging from developing the university’s core STEM landscape to leading research strategy and development for Pitt’s four regional campuses around Pennsylvania. Before being named vice chancellor, he served Pittsburgh’s U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering.

Under his leadership, Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering achieved unprecedented milestones, logging record research expenditures, doctoral and first-year student enrollment and diversity in faculty and student representation.

Prior to Pittsburgh, Martin was Clemson University’s Bob Benmosche Professor and Chair of the Glenn Department of Civil Engineering. He also served as founding director of the Risk Engineering and Systems Analytics Institute, a pioneering collaboration between academia and industry.

Martin began his career at Virginia Tech as a professor of civil engineering and served for six years as a center director. He built an international reputation for his work in geotechnical earthquake and risk engineering, research that had a significant impact on building codes around the world. Leading global field teams following major earthquakes, he contributed to major studies in Turkey, Japan and throughout the United States while serving as director of the Disaster Risk Management Institute at Virginia Tech.

Martin earned a B.S. from The Citadel in 1985 and M.S. and Ph.D. from Virginia Tech, all in civil engineering. He has received numerous national, state and university awards for research, teaching, scholarship, and service, including the American Society of Civil Engineer’s Norman Medal, the highest honor for published work in his field. He also was inducted into the Virginia Tech Department of Civil Engineering’s Academy of Distinguished Alumni in 2015.