Dr. Robert B. Bourret has been named founding dean of the Missouri S&T Graduate School and vice provost of graduate and postdoctoral studies. He will begin his new role in August.

Bourret joins Missouri S&T from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), where he is a professor of microbiology and immunology and has served as his department’s director of graduate studies since 2009.

“Dr. Bourret brings a strong track record in graduate education and research, and I am thrilled to welcome him to the Missouri S&T community,” says Dr. John Harris, S&T provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs. “He will grow and strengthen graduate programs across the university and elevate our impact as a leading R1 institution. His expertise in biology will be especially valuable as we advance our university’s vision to build programs that address critical challenges at the intersection of engineering, medicine and biology.”

Bourret will lead the development of the university’s new Graduate School, which was established to create a more centralized office to oversee graduate and postdoctoral education. His focus areas will include graduate recruitment and enrollment, international student services, program development, academic oversight, and cross-campus collaborations.

Graduate programs at S&T cover a wide range of disciplines, including engineering, science, mathematics, computing, business, economics, psychology and technical communication.

“I see Missouri S&T as an excellent institution with a bright future,” Bourret says. “I am not only excited and enthusiastic, but also proud, to join S&T. I am ready to pour my heart and soul into the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a new Graduate School at a great university. 

“I look forward to working with faculty, students and staff from across campus to further enhance the quality and reputation of graduate and postdoctoral studies at Missouri S&T.”

Bourret, a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, joined the UNC faculty in 1992 as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 1999 and to professor in 2007. He served as associate chair for education and training in the microbiology and immunology department from 2019 to 2022 and from 2023 to 2025.

From 2015 to 2021, he was a member of UNC’s Graduate School Advisory Board.

Since 2011, he has served as chair of the board of directors for the Bacterial Locomotion and Signal Transduction (BLAST) nonprofit organization, which supports collaboration in the microbiology research community.

An expert in the molecular mechanisms of bacterial signal transduction, or how bacteria sense and respond to their environment, Bourret has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles and has received more than $7 million in research funding, with much of his support coming from the National Institutes of Health.

Bourret earned a Ph.D. in microbiology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He completed postdoctoral training at both MIT and Caltech before joining the UNC faculty.

To learn more about Missouri S&T’s graduate programs, visit grad.mst.edu.

About Missouri S&T

Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students located in Rolla, Missouri. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System, Missouri S&T offers over 100 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top public universities for salary impact, according to the Wall Street Journal. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.