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About Chancellor Ken Christensen

Kenneth T. Christensen, PhD, was appointed to serve as chancellor of the University of Colorado Denver in February 2025. As chancellor, Christensen is focused on advancing the public service mission of the institution, one grounded in academic excellence, workforce development, community engagement, and economic impact. Christensen’s career-long focus on supporting the success of students, regardless of background or experiences, parallels that of Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó. 

Committed to serving all learners and the critical public service mission that state universities must fulfill, Christensen takes pride in Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó’s calling to provide access to education for all. He recognizes the transformational value of a degree from Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó, where graduates average more than $2 million in lifetime earnings, and is committed to solidifying Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó’s standing as the anchor higher education partner to the city, metro area, and Front Range. Christensen also holds a faculty appointment as a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

He previously served as provost, senior vice president for academic affairs, and chief academic officer at Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech). He joined Illinois Tech in 2020 as the Carol and Ed Kaplan Dean of the Armour College of Engineering, with a joint faculty appointment in Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering and Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering. As provost, Christensen led Illinois Tech during a period of national acclaim with a focus on improving student enrollment and academic success, increasing experiential learning and workforce readiness, expanding learner access, and growing research output and investment.

This included the launch of academic initiatives that emphasized workforce readiness (Elevate your Future), degree exploration pathways for undecided students (Discover+), multidiscipline undergraduate degree programs (Tech+ program), and a university-wide task force to reimagine the core curriculum to ensure relevance and workforce readiness. Through this transformation, Illinois Tech realized unprecedented growth, including a 30% increase in undergraduate application volume and enrollment growth that exceeded 35%. During this period, Illinois Tech’s undergraduate Hispanic enrollment also grew to qualify for Hispanic-Serving Institution status.

In response to shifting learner preferences and workforce needs, Christensen oversaw strategic program launches to expand Illinois Tech’s student demographics and amplify its impact beyond traditional learners. The most prominent of which was the launch of three master’s and one undergraduate completion degree on Coursera, which were inclusive of a performance-based admissions approach and enabled learners to showcase ability through coursework mastery in lieu of traditional credential-based admission. Other initiatives included partnerships that reached learners in country through business-aligned degree pathways and with Collegis Education on the rapid production of digital learning assets for Coursera programs.

Through the cultivation of new research and industry partnerships, as well as a revamping of the Office of Research, Illinois Tech achieved a 50% increase in research awards year-over-year in fiscal year 2024. Through his proactive engagement, and with a focus on workforce development, Illinois Tech established numerous partnerships including, but not limited to, those with the global supplier DMG MORI to create a new national center for advanced manufacturing, the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen (MachH2), and Chicago ARC, an initiative to enable market-driven, scalable solutions to address health inequities.

As the Carol and Ed Kaplan Dean of the Armour College of Engineering, Christensen developed new interdisciplinary and industry-relevant initiatives in support of student success to address workforce needs and to catalyze larger-scale research efforts. Most notable was the launch of the Armour Academy for Experiential Learning and Student Success, which improved career readiness through experiential learning opportunities and supported academic excellence through a four-pronged advising structure (professional advisor, peer advisor, faculty mentor, and industry mentor). As dean, Christensen also established enhanced faculty recruitment and development approaches, including promoting mentoring networks and leading a development series for all untenured assistant professors to explore common challenges and opportunities.

Prior to Illinois Tech, Christensen held faculty appointments at the University of Notre Dame (2014 to 2020), including as the Viola D. Hank professor and chair of the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, the inaugural assistant dean for faculty development (2015 to 2017), and a Provost Fellow (2017 to 2019) at the university level. Earlier academic appointments include the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2004 to 2014) where he served as the Kritzer Faculty Scholar in the Mechanical Science and Engineering Department, with affiliate appointments in Aerospace Engineering and Geology. He began as an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico in 2002.

Christensen has authored more than 200 journal articles, book chapters, and peer-reviewed conference proceedings. His academic research expertise is in experimental fluid mechanics, with a focus on complex interactions within various engineering systems, such as flow interactions with complex bedforms and multi-phase flow within heterogeneous porous structures. Central to his research was the development and utilization of advanced measurement methods to reveal the underlying physics of these flows for improved modeling and prediction.

A native of northern New Mexico, Christensen holds a bachelor of science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico (summa cum laude), a master of science in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, and a doctorate in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Physical Society (APS), and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).