Stephen Ruffin, Ph.D.

Stephen Ruffin, Ph.D., serves as the interim executive director of Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE). In this role, he leads a multifaceted operation including the Global Learning Center, the Language Institute, and Georgia Tech’s extensive professional education programs. As a part of the College of Lifetime Learning, GTPE offers professional development courses, certificate programs, and online master’s degrees in a variety of formats to meet the needs of working professionals and industry partners in STEM and business fields worldwide. 

Dr. Ruffin is also the associate dean of Academic Affairs, where he fosters a learner-centric environment and provides curricular oversight and management of all new and existing online degrees and professional development programs. In this role, he collaborates with faculty and the Georgia Tech community to align academic offerings with the needs of a rapidly changing global marketplace and advance the mission of serving a broader, diverse population of learners. 

Additionally, Dr. Ruffin is a professor in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech, and director of NASA's Georgia Space Grant Consortium (GSGC). GSGC conducts student research and design team activities, internships, scholarships, fellowships, K-12 student hands-on activities and camps, K-12 teacher training programs and public outreach activities at museums, science centers and in the community. 

He is also head of the Aerothermodynamics Research and Technology Laboratory (ARTLAB). Dr. Ruffin is a specialist in high temperature gas dynamics, compressible flow aerodynamics, and airframe propulsion integration.  

Dr. Ruffin graduated from Princeton University with a B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, respectively.  

Read more about his faculty bio here.