Indiana Governor Mike Braun has appointed Dr. Glen Kissel of Evansville to the University of Southern Indiana Board of Trustees for a term beginning September 7, 2025, through June 30, 2026. Kissel fills the remainder of a four-year term previously held by W. Harold Calloway, who retired from the Board earlier this year.

Kissel served for two decades as a faculty member in the Engineering Department at USI. During his tenure, he was responsible for developing the program plan and overseeing the initial accreditation visit for the University’s first named engineering degree, the Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. He also created USI’s first engineering optics course and laboratory, and as faculty advisor, guided the UNITE [Undergraduate Nano Ionospheric Temperature Explorer] CubeSat project, which launched the first spacecraft in orbit by a public institution in Indiana.

Prior to joining USI, Kissel spent eight years as a technical staff member at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he served as an attitude control engineer for the Galileo spacecraft—the first satellite to orbit Jupiter—as well as on an early concept mission to Pluto.

Kissel earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering (aerospace) from Oklahoma State University and both a master’s degree and doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1990-91, he was a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge in England. He also holds a Master of Divinity degree from Fuller Theological Seminary.

The USI Board of Trustees has nine trustees and must include one alumnus of the University, one current student and one resident of Vanderburgh County. Trustee terms are generally four years with exceptions for the filling of vacancies or for the student term, which is two years.