Professor Kempel joined Michigan State University (MSU) in 1998. He served as the Founding Director of the High Performance Computing Center at MSU, Associate Dean for Special Initiatives and Associate Dean for Research during the Deanship of Satish Udpa – a founding member of the GEDC. He became Acting Dean and then Dean of Engineering beginning in March 2013. Prof. Kempel was awarded a CAREER award by the National Science Foundation and the Teacher-Scholar award by Michigan State University. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES).

During his Deanship, Dr. Kempel has grown the faculty size of the College of Engineering from 167 to over 225 by September 2018. In addition, the college has had larger incoming classes every year during his tenure; the College of Engineering now has over 5500 undergraduate students as well as over 900 graduate students. The expansion of the College of Engineering is continuing with an expectation of lasting for another five years.

In addition to his academic service, he is a member of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board. His recent research activity has focused on magneto-dielectric materials for RF applications, conformal apertures, and additive manufacturing for antennas. He has published over 250 papers in international venues primarily through the IEEE and continues to conduct research with graduate students.

Dr. Kempel is a member of IEEE, Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, and Commission B of URSI.