Dr. Donald Plumlee

Donald Plumlee is the visionary leader of a team of faculty and staff devoted to guiding students along their pathway to an impactful professional career in engineering.  He brings a passion for the theory and practice of engineering education in the style of an American university to Iraq.  With highly qualified faculty, strong global academic partnerships combined with world-class educational laboratories on the AUIB campus, the College of Engineering is your best option for obtaining an internationally recognized engineering degree.

Previously, Donald served as an academic administrator and faculty member in the College of Engineering at Boise State University in the US.  As the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, he coordinated curriculum, accreditation, advising, scholarships, and experiential learning for the college with 90 faculty, 3100 students across 9 undergraduate programs and 12 graduate programs.  As Department Chair for Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering he directly supervised and mentored faculty with a focus on student success.  He achieved the rank of Full Professor with tenure in the Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Department and was an award-winning instructor in the areas of thermodynamics, heat transfer, compressible fluid dynamics and engineering systems.  Donald is a certified an ABET Program Evaluator and has led successful accreditation visits at both the department and college levels. He has been awarded over $14.5M in external funding from NASA, DOD, NSF, NIH and the EDA.

Prior to his work in academia, he held professional engineering positions at both Lockheed Martin Astronautics (commercial aerospace) and Lockheed Martin Utility Services (nuclear fuel enrichment) as well as NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (propulsion).  He has a PhD, MS and BS, all in Mechanical Engineering, from the University of Idaho, Boise State University and Texas A&M University.  He is a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) in the US.  In his spare time, he enjoys playing guitar, traveling, scuba diving and enjoying time with friends.  Feel free to drop by his office for a quick chat about your engineering career.