Vincent P. Manno is an engineer, engineering educator and academic leader. Currently a full-time grandfather and a part-time consultant, Vin dedicates his time to family and to assisting institutions developing programs to enhance student success and advance human-centered engineering.
Vin received a BS from Columbia University and MS and Sc.D. degrees from M.I.T. in nuclear/mechanical engineering. His fields of interest are engineering education, power generation, electronics thermal management and semiconductor manufacturing processes. His research has been supported by the government agencies and industry including the DOE, NSF, and U.S. Navy. He has authored numerous journal articles, conference papers, book chapters and technical reports. He is a frequent keynote speaker and has served on several advisory boards including the that of the Tufts University Institute for Global Leadership.
Vin worked in the private sector, served as a U.S. Navy Senior Summer Faculty Fellow, and holds a US patent. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the recipient of Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award, the Harvey Rosten Award for Excellence in the Thermal Analysis of Electronic Equipment, the ASME Curriculum Innovation Award, the Tufts University Engineering Teacher of the Year, and the Seymour Simches Award for Distinguished Teaching and Advising.
From 1984 through 2011, Vin was on the faculty of Tufts University and held the rank of Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the time of his departure. At Tufts, he also held a number of leadership positions including Department Chair, Associate Dean of Engineering for Graduate Education, Dean of Engineering ad interim, and Associate Provost. In the latter role, he was responsible for cross-disciplinary initiatives at Tufts including the Institute for Global Leadership during Sherman Techiman’s directorship. From 2004-2011, Sherman and Vin worked together to advance IGL’s role as a cross campus catalyst for student growth and interdisciplinarity, as well as enhance the resilience of the Institute’s infrastructure. Among their numerous collaborations, co-organization of the symposium The Genie Travels On: The Challenge on Emerging Nuclear States, stands out as prescient of the evolving world order.
From 2011-2019, Vin was Provost and Dean of Faculty as well as Professor of Engineering at the Olin College of Engineering in Needham, MA. At Olin, he led efforts to redefine faculty assessment and development, encourage systemic curricular innovation, and develop sustainable collaboration partnerships with other institutions. In 2020, he was named Provost Emeritus and Professor of Engineering Emeritus by the Olin Board of Trustees.
Truly, without Vin as our adviser and guide, we would not have been able to drive the Institute forward wisely. We were grateful for his astute questions, for his advice on governance, and for his sagacious sense of interactions with our faculty and the Tufts administration. I am ever thankful for his trust and extensive consultative time.
Vin found a unique formula for management and human oversight, one of equanimity, co-joined with passion. As one of the most open-minded and fairest of people I have ever had the pleasure of working with, Vin created an atmosphere of trust. He understood our role as an innovative center and encouraged the Institute’s development, specifically helping us to develop Engineers Without Borders, nurturing the Tufts Energy Initiative into the far broader onging Tufts Fletcher Energy Forum, supporting my creating Tufts's first formal adoption of Scholars at Risk, and the Institute's Synaptic Scholars program that I tasked with invigorating intellectual life at Tufts, with now such enduring campus programs as Tufts TED-X.
My introduction to this NIMEP "Beyond the Politics of Fear" Insight journal, speaks to the controversies Vin helped the Institute manage, especially regarding the sensitive security and political concerns of our NIMEP research groups' visit to Lebanon
I sincerely doubt that such efforts would be supported in this educational era, as they were then by Vin, and then Tufts President Larry Bacow, who praised our efforts as "prudent risk-taking."
Together with the professional nuclear workshop that Vin mentions, he and I created the Vannevar Bush Award recognizing Bush’s accomplishments, as science adviser to presidents and the Director of the US Office of Scientific Research and Development, which we brought forward to the School of Engineering. Vin reminded me at the time of the value of allowing its cautious Dean to think of it as her own idea.
Its first recipient was Dick Meserve, the brother of Bill Meserve, a long-standing wonderful member of the Institute's External Advisory Board. We also co-sponsored the Vannevar Bush Forum on Science, Ethics and Public Policy. Bush was a brilliant and fascinating man and It was part of my desire to create programming in the spirit of the Nobel Prize for Peace-winning Pugwash initiatives, as an exploration of science as morally neutral, with such questions as what were the ethical issues that confronted scientists in successfully completing the atomic bomb? What are the ongoing ethical dilemmas and social responsibilities scientists face in the nuclear arena and beyond?
At his formal Tufts University goodby party Vin spoke of his involvement overseeing the Institute as encouraging and reinforcing his desire to enter Olin Engineering as its Provost for as he described it, "being engaged in the programmatic and personal dimensions of IGL afforded me the opportunity to navigate the colliding constraints of student safety, education in the broadest terms, and prudent institutional risk-taking. The role of Provost, especially at an idiosyncratic and mission-driven place like Olin, required an analogous set of navigation skills.
Vin surprised me when he spoke at the gathering of Tufts faculty and administration with a reference to myself as a "Six Sigma". It is a lovely moment to think that I had any impact on his life, as surely, he did on mine.
When I spoke I found the word that I think characterizes Vin best, “Decency.” Such a rare quality in an all too often indecent world. A superb teacher and mentor, greatly respected by all, I am proud that he will remain involved with the Trebuchet into the future.