Dennis Kekas

As Associate Vice Chancellor at North Carolina State University, Dennis is responsible for Centennial Campus Partnerships and Economic Development. He also has an appointment in the College of Engineering.

Previously in 2015, he led the launch of NC State’s “Power America” National Manufacturing Innovation Institute focused on advanced power electronics.

As a former IBM career executive, he led development of the first NYSE floor trading system as well as disruptive products associated with point-of-sale, bar code scanners, keyboards and networking infrastructure.

His BSEE is from Clemson with graduate studies at Syracuse, NC State and UCLA. A registered Engineer in New York and North Carolina he holds 8 Patents with numerous awards for inventions, technical achievements and management excellence.

As past president of the Clemson Alumni Association he received Clemson’s Distinguished Service Award in 1999, and received the 2016 Association of University Research Parks Leadership Award.

In 2008 he co-founded ImagineOptix Corporation to commercialize NC State optical technologies and is board chair. He also serves on the boards for the Clemson University Research Foundation (CURF) and in 2019 was appointed to the MCNC Board.

He and his wife Joyce reside in Raleigh, NC.