James Martin II, who served as dean of the Swanson School of Engineering from 2018 to ’22 and then moved to a position in the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Research, has been named chancellor-elect of North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro.

From August 2022 until now, Martin has been Pitt’s vice chancellor for STEM research and innovation. Before coming to Pitt, he was chair of the civil engineering department at Clemson University.

Martin was elected June 21 by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors. He will take over on Aug. 15 at the nation’s largest historically Black college by enrollment. He succeeds Harold Martin Sr., who announced in September 2023 that he was retiring after 15 years as chancellor.

North Carolina A&T is attempting to become the first HBCU to earn recognition as a top-tier research institution, R1 by the Carnegie Classification, according to a news release from the school.

He began his career as a faculty member in civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, where he later led an engineering fellowship program for underrepresented students and founded the university’s Disaster Risk Management Institute. He earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at The Citadel and a master’s and doctorate in civil engineering from Virginia Tech. He was born in Union, S.C.