Rachel Kajfez, PhD

Rachel Louis Kajfez is Ohio State's assistant vice president for talent and team development in the Office of Knowledge Enterprise, where she is responsible for building research leadership at the university and providing training programs. In this role, Kajfez also oversees the STEAM Factory, an organization and physical space that supports interdisciplinary collaborations. 

Kajfez has extensive experience at Ohio State working on interdisciplinary teams and managing large-scale research projects. She is passionate about developing and mentoring researchers to reach their professional goals while supporting the university’s research mission to identify and train the next generation of research leaders. Broadly, she aims to enable success in academia for all through strategic, innovative and learner-centered action​. 

In addition to her role in the Knowledge Enterprise, Kajfez is an associate professor in the College of Engineering’s Department of Engineering Education, which she helped establish, as well as the associate department chair for graduate studies and research infrastructure. She is the principal investigator for the RIME Collaborative. Throughout her career, she has held a variety of leadership positions including past lead technical program chair and steering committee member for the Frontiers in Education conference, and she has helped author over 90 peer-reviewed manuscripts, including journal articles and conference proceedings with multiple best paper awards. Kajfez remains active in her research domain, helping to elevate and expand identity and motivation research in engineering education while ensuring quality educational enhancements in the classroom, and is an associate editor for Studies in Engineering Education. 

Kajfez is a Buckeye at heart, earning her bachelor's and master's degrees from Ohio State in civil engineering. She returned to Ohio State as a faculty member in 2013 after completing her doctorate in engineering education at Virginia Tech.