[1] Collins served as professor of chemical engineering at Pennsylvania State University for 11 years.
[2][3] In 1998, he was a visiting scientist at the Laboratoire de Combustion et Systemes Reactifs in Orléans, France and at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
[2][3] As dean, Collins nearly doubled the proportion of underrepresented minority students (to 21%), while undergraduate female enrollment grew to 50%.
[5] He also took on a central role in establishing of Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island in Manhattan, New York City in 2011.
[15] Collins was elected Member-at-Large of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Engineering Section in 2014.