Fernando Rosario-Ortiz

Fernando Rosario-Ortiz is the vice chancellor and executive vice provost for academic resource management (VC-ARM) and a professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering. He served as interim dean of the School of Education from January 2024 through March 2025.

As VC-ARM, he leads academic resource strategy and analysis in support of the university’s research and teaching missions. The incumbent coordinates strategic initiatives with the various directorates in the division of Strategic Resources and Support. The role also oversees the research infrastructure, the Graduate School, Continuing Education and CU Boulder Online.

Rosario-Ortiz’s research focuses on environmental chemistry, including examining the effects that wildland and urban fires can have on water quality and degradation of contaminants in environmental and engineered systems. He put that expertise to work in a personal way in 2019 when he earned a federal grant to study the effect of Hurricane Maria on water systems in his native Puerto Rico.

He was selected as a Research & Innovation Office fellow at CU Boulder in 2017–18; was a trustee for the Water Quality and Research Division of the American Water Works Association from 2017 to 2022; serves as executive and associate editor for the journal Environmental Science and Technology; received the NSF CAREER award in 2015; and received a CU Boulder Provost’s Faculty Achievement Award in 2016, among many other awards and honors.

Rosario-Ortiz has been a member of the CU Boulder faculty since 2008. He earned a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles; a from California Institute of Technology; and a bachelor’s from the University of Puerto Rico. Read Fernando Rosario-Ortiz's bio on the College of Engineering and Applied Science website.