At-Large Member
Lee Todd of Lexington is a former electrical engineering professor who served as president of the University of Kentucky (UK) for 10 years.
Todd was UK's president from 2001 to 2011, leading the school through a period of significant increases in enrollment, budget resources, research funding, medical facilities and start-up company initiatives.
He served on the UK College of Engineering faculty from 1974 to 1983 and again from 2011 to 2014, when he resigned to become board chairman and chief strategist for FacilityOne, a Louisville-based building management software company. He served on the Council on Postsecondary Education and chaired its Distant Learning Advisory Committee and its statewide STEM I and STEM II task forces.
Todd received six patents for his work in the area of large-screen projection displays during his time as a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He later founded two technology companies based on his research and later convinced Hughes Aircraft, which bought one of them, to move two divisions to a Lexington facility that initiated UK's Coldstream Research Campus.
Todd holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from UK and a master's and a doctorate in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He is a graduate of Earlington High School (Earlington Independent).
Todd's term expires April 14, 2026.
KBE SPOTLIGHT | Lee Todd wants to help Kentucky students ‘dream faster'
Lee Todd, a member of the Kentucky Board of Education, talks with representatives of career and technical student organizations who were recognized at a KBE meeting in Frankfort. Todd said he hopes the board can assist educators in helping students realize the possibilities that are available to them beyond what they can see.
Photo by Marvin Young, Feb. 4, 2020