Del Ruff

Del Ruff serves as Senior Director of Workforce and Education for the American Institute of Architects national office in Washington DC. Del’s responsibilities include the management of the workforce and education team, which focuses on the concerns of addressing the pipeline to becoming an architect and equity, diversity, and inclusion of the profession.

Del has over twenty years of service in education before taking his current post at AIA. He served as a math and science educator in middle and high schools, Science Department Chair, and AP Coordinator in rural Eastern North Carolina. Del later joined the leadership team developing a middle college in North Carolina. His experience provided him with an opportunity to be recruited back to his alma mater to develop two early college models at Fayetteville State University. His experience in higher education later translated into a post in Western North Carolina within the community college system. There he led the effort to engage middle and high school students and educators to develop college and career readiness practices. The next step in his career progression was to become a transformational superintendent in a small charter school district at the request of one of the nation's largest authorizers, Central Michigan University. The completion of his efforts in Michigan led him back to North Carolina as the State Director of the Virtual STEM Project at the Department of Public Instruction. His final post was to work at the Public School Forum of North Carolina as a Director and Educational Researcher. In this role, he led two policy initiatives in the state to receive bipartisan funding for out of school time learning.

Del graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Fayetteville State University, a Masters of Administration from Central Michigan University, and currently pursuing doctoral work at Wilmington University in Delaware.

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