President Harriet B. Nembhard
Harriet B. Nembhard is the president of Harvey Mudd College, the premier liberal arts STEM college in the country and a member of The Claremont Colleges. She is a widely recognized leader in the field of industrial engineering, a voice on the national level for advancing undergraduate STEM education, and a champion for Harvey Mudd’s mission.
Under her leadership, the College is implementing STEM for a Better World—HMC Strategy: 2025-2035, a bold strategic plan that reflects Harvey Mudd’s commitment to educating responsible and compassionate scientists, mathematicians, and engineers with a deep understanding of ethical, social, and environmental considerations required to help develop solutions that benefit humanity and the planet. This vision is being fueled by the Innovation Accelerator, an effort to engage members of the HMC community in creating forward-thinking initiatives that drive excellence under the strategic plan and build philanthropic partnerships that propel the College forward.
President Nembhard began her college career at 16, studying management-engineering at Claremont McKenna College and industrial engineering at Arizona State University, before attaining her PhD in industrial and operations engineering at University of Michigan. She displayed an early interest in engineering management as evidenced by the types of questions she asked as a child to her father, a pilot, when they visited airports. She was curious about how the luggage made it to the right airplane, how flight crews were assigned and why smaller airplanes were parked on the side of the airport. In short, asking systems questions at a young age.
This interest in systems engineering led to a life of scholarship in applied statistics and operations research in which she has taken a multidisciplinary approach to improve complex systems across manufacturing and healthcare. Her research teams have made numerous advances including simulation models for assessing emergency department patient flow, a patented manufacturing process for medical devices, and a machine-learning sensor-based system to conduct early screening of Parkinson’s disease. These innovations have improved quality of care for thousands of patients and contributed to her co-authored textbook, Healthcare Systems Engineering.
Prior to joining Harvey Mudd, she was dean of engineering at the University of Iowa and held leadership positions at Oregon State and Penn State. In these roles, she consistently raised the institutional profile by strengthening research impact, faculty recruitment, and student success. She led initiatives to foster inclusive excellence, secured funding for student leadership programs, engaged industry and government partners to expand opportunities for innovation, and positioned engineering programs for long-term growth and national recognition.
President Nembhard is a Fellow of the American Society for Quality, the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. She is widely published in leading professional journals, has served in several journal editorships and has mentored numerous students and faculty. Many of her former PhD students and postdocs now hold significant positions in industry and academia worldwide.