P. Barry Butler serves as president of Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. As the world’s largest university specializing in aviation and aerospace, Embry Riddle educates over 30,000 students annually at residential campuses in Daytona Beach, Florida, and Prescott, Arizona, and through the top-ranked Worldwide Campus. Since 2017, Butler has expanded academic, industry and government collaboration to advance the study of aviation and aerospace safety, data analytics and aviation cybersecurity. These partnerships have strengthened discovery-driven education and led to the creation of new centers of excellence at Embry-Riddle, the Center for Aerospace Resilient Systems, the Boeing Center for Aviation & Aerospace Safety, the Center for Space and Atmospheric Research, and the Center for Advanced Air Mobility. Butler has also expanded the university’s research park, home to aviation- and space-focused entrepreneurs. As an advocate for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, Embry-Riddle runs a dual-enrollment Aerospace Career Academy, which annually offers university courses to thousands of high school students throughout Florida. Butler also encourages student engagement in hands-on, real-world research. Students have sent projects to space, including a camera system that became the first student-designed project to reach the moon. 

Previously, Butler was executive vice president and provost of the University of Iowa, a position that followed ten years as dean of the College of Engineering. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a licensed private and glider pilot.