Dr. Jorge A. Vanegas graduated in 1979 with a degree in Architecture from the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia, South America. He is a registered Architect in Colombia. He pursued graduate studies in the Construction Engineering and Management Program (CEM) of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Stanford University, Stanford, California, graduating with a M.S. degree in 1985, and a Ph.D. degree in 1988. He is currently a tenured Professor in the Department of Architecture (ARCH) in CARC since January 2006, and in addition, he has an appointment as a Research Professor in the Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) of the Texas A&M University System (TAMUS) since September 2011. In July 2009, Dr. Vanegas began an appointment as Dean of the College of Architecture (CARC) at Texas A&M University (TAMU), having served as Interim Dean from August 2008 to July 2009. In July 2013, he was reappointed for a second term as Dean of CARC, and on in January 2017, he was reappointed for a third term. Dr. Vanegas served as the Director of the Center for Housing and Urban Development (CHUD) from January 2006 to February 2012, and was appointed as the Sandy and Bryan Mitchell Master Builder Endowed Chair in CARC from September 2008 to February 2012.
Before joining TAMU, Dr. Vanegas held academic appointments at Purdue University and at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). In August 1988, he joined Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, and from 1988 to 1993, he held an appointment as an Assistant Professor in the School of CE and the Division of CEM. Subsequently, in May 1993, he joined Georgia Tech with an appointment as an Associate Professor in CEM/CE, was granted tenure in 1996, held the Fred and Teresa Estrada Professorship in the College of Engineering (COE) from 1999 to 2005, and was promoted to Professor in 2005. From 1988 to 2005, Dr. Vanegas led and managed active research and education programs, for which he secured over $3.7 million in external funding for 51 research and education-related projects, from various funding sources from the public and private sectors.