Prior to coming to Ball State in August 2006, Terry S. King served as dean of the College of Engineering at Kansas State — a college of 150 faculty members, eight academic departments and 32 academic programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels — since 1997.

During that time, he:

• collaborated in the development of the computing and information technology initiative for the university
• began the K-State LEA/RN Program to enhance learner-focused education for engineering faculty members and faculty members in other colleges
• initiated the Innovation Leadership Program in collaboration with the College of Business Administration to provide business expertise to people with scientific and technical backgrounds to promote entrepreneurship and technology transfer
• facilitated the process to create the College of Engineering's strategic vision, mission, core values and numerical performance objectives
• increased the college's endowment from $7.9 million to $21 million and raised annual gift activity to the college to more than $10 million per year
• created the Women in Engineering and Science Program in collaboration with the College of Arts and Sciences to recruit and retain women students and faculty members
• enhanced the stature of the college's Multicultural Engineering Program
• was responsible for a dramatic increase in the number of external advisory boards used by the college, resulting in more than 100 professional and industry leaders being engaged in the advancement of each college unit's goals.
   

Before joining Kansas State, King was chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Iowa State University. He began his professional career as a research engineer at Exxon Chemical Co. in Baton Rouge in 1979 and progressed to senior engineer in 1981. In 1982, he joined the faculty at Iowa State as an assistant professor, becoming an associate professor in 1986 and a full professor in 1990.

King has taught at all levels of chemical engineering, and his research interests are fundamental catalysis and surface science, application of solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to catalyst studies, catalyst applications, surface thermodynamics and reaction engineering. Prior to becoming dean in 1997, King attracted $4.7 million in research funding, primarily from the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

King earned a bachelor of science in chemical engineering from Iowa State in 1975 and a doctorate in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979.