Richard Utz

Richard Utz is an academic leader who has served as interim dean and senior associate dean in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts (IAC) and as chair of the School of Literature, Media, and Communication (LMC). Under Utz’s leadership, LMC experienced consequential growth in external research funding, faculty productivity, and enrollment and diversity in its undergraduate and graduate programs, and it added to its curriculum minors in Black Media Studies, Science Fiction, and Social Justice (with the School of History and Sociology), and a profession ready master’s degree in Global Media and Cultures (with the School of Modern Languages and the Library). Utz also oversaw the renovation and repurposing of multiple spaces to further student success and belonging such as the Undergraduate Hub, the Sci-Fi Lab, the Career Origination Lab, and the Digital Integrative Liberal Arts Center, funded by the Mellon Foundation. During his tenure, LMC saw the appointment of its first Regents’ Professor, and he incentivized research that reaches out to educated general publics, significantly amplifying his school’s reputation. He led these efforts by example, publishing two editions of the unit’s calling card essay collection, Humanistic Perspectives in a Technological World, and sharing his views in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Times Higher Education, University Business, and Issues in Science and Technology. 

As a leader at the College level, Utz has overseen faculty affairs processes and professional development, including a comprehensive resource hub and workshop series on reappointment, promotion, and tenure and a faculty-to-faculty mentoring process. He served as co-champion for building and implementing the Ivan Allen College Strategic Plan, organized high impact events on integrating the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences with STEM fields, and played a role in strategic communication and development activities, garnering funds for LGBTQ+ projects and international summer internships. He also represented the college to internal and external constituencies, serving as co-lead on the Cultural Excellence area for the Institute Strategic Plan, the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage Selection Committee, and the Arts@Tech Strategic Planning Steering Committee. As interim dean, Utz focused on student success initiatives, including increasing need-based dean's scholarships, and championed the College's "Humanizing STEM" initiative.

Before joining Georgia Tech in 2012, Utz held administrative and faculty appointments at Western Michigan University, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, University of Northern Iowa, and Technische Universität Dresden. He received his Ph.D. in English and German Literary Studies and Linguistics from the University of Regensburg, Germany, and his scholarship centers on medievalism, medieval culture and literature, the interconnections between humanistic inquiry and science/technology, reception study, and the formation of cultural memories and identities. An impactful scholar, he was a plenary speaker at the world’s largest international congress in Medieval Studies, served for eleven years as President of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism, and helps shape his field of study on the editorial advisory board of journals and book series based in Australia, Great Britain, Denmark, Germany, and the United States. Utz has shared his research in three monographs, 21 (co)edited essay collections and special journal issues, 80 journal articles and book chapters, and 70 book reviews. His work has been translated into French, Portuguese, Russian, and Turkish, and he has received media attention by the Christian Science Monitor, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Forbes, New York Times, Sputnik Mundo, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Time Magazine, and Serious Eats (seriously!). Utz’s has been recognized with a German Academic Exchange Service Teaching Fellowship, the Johann von Spix International Visiting Professorship at Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, the Iowa State Board of Regents Award for Faculty Excellence, and as Director’s Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks Research Library.