MSU Foundation Professor and Chair of the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders (CSD) Dimitar Deliyski has been awarded the Simmons Chivukula Award for Academic Leadership, one of Michigan State University’s prestigious All-University Awards. This honor recognizes exemplary work and consistently demonstrated excellence as a leader of an academic unit.
First Impressions Matter
For Deliyski, the award affirms a leadership approach rooted in humility, scientific rigor and a deep care for people.
“My first impression of MSU when I came to visit here, before I was even recruited, was how happy people look compared to other campuses,” Deliyski said. “There is something cheerful in the way people act and behave. There is a lot of positive energy.”
This abundance of positivity — paired with a can-do attitude — initially attracted Deliyski to a faculty position at Michigan State. At least, that’s what he expected to do.
“One thing that was unusual here is that as soon as I came, I was asked to become a chair of the department, which I was not planning for,” he said. “The dean at that time convinced me to become a chair, so I became a chair.”
It’s this kind of quiet confidence that has guided his entire career. Before coming to MSU in 2015, Deliyski built a rare interdisciplinary resume: 11 years in industry as a chief scientist (including at a Silicon Valley startup he co-founded) followed by academic appointments at the University of South Carolina and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, where he held his first endowed chair position and co-directed a new research center. Having already attained tenure by the time he arrived in East Lansing, Deliyski brought with him a clear sense of purpose — to cultivate both excellence and community within his department.
Inclusivity Leads to Growth
Deliyski’s leadership at ComArtSci has reflected that intended balance. While maintaining an active research portfolio, Deliyski has also helped guide the department through years of steady growth, supporting faculty recruitment and development while championing a climate that is positive, productive and inclusive.
When it comes to collaborations, Deliyski thinks both inside and outside the box — partnering with colleagues within CSD, with other departments at ComArtSci, other colleges at MSU (such as through the Trifecta Initiative) and beyond.
“Professionally, our field relates to speech language pathology, which is a clinical field, but the science behind it needs to be supported by a lot of disciplines, like engineering, physics, psychology, medicine and others. So, we need people with diverse backgrounds,” Deliyski said.
This was his inspiration behind partnering with the College of Engineering to establish dual Ph.D. programs that combine CSD with Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering (CMSE) and Mechanical Engineering. Deliyski said the department also creates inroads for integration with the Henry Ford Health + MSU Health Sciences partnership.
“I think MSU is very open to multidisciplinary collaborations; that was one thing that surprised me,” Deliyski reflected. “How easy it is to go to engineering, or nursing or medicine or somewhere else, and establish things and just keep going. There are very few formal obstacles for that.”
Leading by Example
When it comes to Deliyski’s mentorship and leadership style, two things stand out. The first is that, despite his career successes, he doesn’t speak about his mentors in the past tense (“I’m still learning from them”) and he remains fascinated by how much he learns from mentoring others. The second is how he approaches leading by example — by simply never sitting still.
“Try to catch me,” Deliyski laughed, noting that this approach works just as well for students as for leading a department. He advises that building the climate, rather than trying to implement formal requirements and criteria, has been the secret to their success.
“Show them the passion that you have towards what you do and how unstoppable you are, and then eventually that inspires them, and they start to adopt that as well.”
That approach helped successfully develop extramural research funding — particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, when social distancing measures prompted concerns about productivity worldwide. “Actually, that was the best time for us, because we focused on producing,” Deliyski said, noting that the small department secured more than $30 million in grant funding for their research. “It was hard to believe that this will materialize, but it did.”
Under his leadership, the CSD department has earned well-deserved recognition, including in 2022 when they received MSU’s inaugural Spiral of Excellence Award. The following year, Deliyski was honored with the Beal Outstanding Faculty Award, one of the university’s highest distinctions for research, service and teaching.
Still, for Dimitar Deliyski, awards are never the goal — they’re simply a reflection of a shared effort.
“I want to be remembered as someone who built a unit with an excellent climate that was able to maintain a solid upward trajectory,” he said. “My hope is that this unit will remain highly effective and sustainable for the future.”
By Jessica Mussell
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Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders