Drexel University announced Tuesday that Sharon L. Walker will be the new dean of its College of Engineering. She will be the first woman to hold the role since the engineering school formally became a college in 1968, according to university officials.

Walker said she was “deeply honored” by the appointment.

“Drexel’s mission of innovative education and vision of applying research to the greater good and wellbeing of its community, and society at large, is extremely compelling,” she said in a statement to Technical.ly. “I’m excited to start this new chapter at Drexel.”

Walker comes to Drexel from the University of California, Riverside. There, the chemical and environmental engineer most recently served as the interim dean of the university’s Bourns College of Engineering.

Walker’s research at UCR, and Yale before that, focused on “the fate and transport of bacteria and nanoparticles in water.” Now, about the Schuylkill…