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As a 17-year-old growing up in rural Ohio, Dave Grewell rode his bicycle to a nearby private airport and told the owner he wanted to learn how to fly airplanes.

They quickly made a pact: in exchange for the teen mowing the grass and doing other chores, pilots would teach him how to fly. Within a year, Grewell had a pilot’s license and was helping prep airplanes for annual inspections.

That rarefied curiosity and determination propelled him to a bachelor’s degree in engineering from The Ohio State University—his OSU master’s and doctorate degrees in engineering would come during his 14 years working at Emerson Electric.

After 14 years on the Iowa State University engineering faculty and a five-year stint at North Dakota State University, where he chaired the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Grewell’s path led to Northern Illinois University in July 2023, when he became dean of the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology.

Grewell’s perpetual push-back on the status quo has fueled everything from securing 18 patents to launching a holistic, four-day accelerator session during NIU’s Week of Welcome to help freshmen navigate the transition to college.

“I’m a risk taker, sometimes even a bull in a china shop,” Grewell says. “I’ve learned that the worst that usually happens if you make a mistake is you learn from it.”

While AI’s fast-evolving, disruptive nature has stirred skepticism and fear among some in academia, Grewell is fully embracing its potential while being mindful of its potential pitfalls. In addition to convening an AI panel discussion during CEET’s Innovation Showcase this past fall, he introduced an AI-based calculus tutoring service for engineering students.

“We’ve been using the same model for higher education, and education in general, for hundreds of years: go to a lecture, listen to a monologue, study and then take a test. Rinse and repeat,” Grewell said. “AI gives us the opportunity to change that.”

Grewell chose to come to NIU over other universities that made similar offers. The biggest factor was the Huskie culture of providing opportunities to everyone. Having grown up in a family that struggled financially and having graduated from a high school that didn’t offer calculus, Grewell identifies with others from humble backgrounds.

“What we’re here to do is increase human capital,” he says. “We help students become self-motivated to keep learning, so they become highly successful and make a positive, lasting impact on society. I’m proud of that.”