The new dean of UC Riverside’s college of engineering is the chairman of the mechanical and aerospace engineering department at UCLA, where he’s credited with helping stop a gunman from killing another professor.

Christopher S. Lynch, whose appointment was announced Wednesday, April 4, said discussing the 2016 shooting — which claimed the life of one of his good friends — reopens mental wounds.

But when he heard two gunshots near his office in June 2016, Lynch didn’t hesitate, according to published reports.

Former doctoral student Mainak Sarkar had shot and killed Lynch’s colleague, engineering professor William Klug. Lynch called police and held the door shut to keep the shooter away from other faculty and staff, witnesses say.

Sarkar had two names on a “kill list,” but after killing Klug, he shot himself. Lynch’s actions may have saved their lives, his colleagues have said.

Lynch, who speaks comfortably about engineering and education statistics and the importance of expanding access to engineering programs, said describing the shooting is painful.

“That happened in my department to a very good friend of mine,” he said. “Even to this day, it’s difficult to talk about and a difficult situation. We at UCLA have really come together after that event and we’ve grown closer and stronger from it. We still talk to the family, and they’re incredibly important to us.”

When he starts Sept. 1 as dean of UC Riverside’s Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering, Lynch hopes to increase the number of faculty from 125 to 150 in his first five years.

“I’d like to grow the school to accommodate the number of applicants from diverse backgrounds,” Lynch said, adding that the goal depends on finding resources.

Only 6 percent of engineering applicants to University of California schools are admitted, despite campaigns touting the advantages of science, technology, engineering and math, he said.

“We push very hard, advertising and encouraging these young kids to get involved in STEM education and to look at STEM as a career,” he said. “Then we have a bottleneck at the bachelor’s level.”

Unlike many other schools — including UCLA — UC Riverside has the physical space to grow, said Lynch, chairman of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department of UCLA’s Samueli School of Engineering.

And the area includes good career opportunities, he said: Bourns, the California Air Resources Board Southern California Headquarters, and start-ups.

Lynch received his masters and his doctorate from UC Santa Barbara.

Sharon Walker will remain interim dean of Bourns until Aug. 31. On Sept. 1, she begins as the dean of the College of Engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia.