Clemson dean elected vice chairman of National Science Board

CLEMSON, SC – May 12, 2010 – Esin Gulari, dean of the Clemson University College of Engineering and Science, has been elected vice chairman of the National Science Board (NSB), the nation’s top science policy organization.

Appointed to a six-year term on the board in 2008, Gulari will serve two years in the leadership post.

This is a significant achievement for Esin and a proud moment for Clemson, said Jim Barker, president of the university. Membership on the nation’s highest science board is an honor in itself, and her elected leadership within that body is a reflection of the regard with which her peers hold her. This is a distinguished mark in a distinguished career.

The National Science Board is an independent body of advisers to both the president and Congress on broad national policy issues related to science and engineering research and education. It also is an oversight body for the National Science Foundation.

Drawn both from industry and universities, its members represent a variety of science and engineering disciplines and geographic areas. National Science Board members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

I am honored that the NSB membership has conferred such a vote of confidence and I look forward to serving as vice chairman, Gulari said. We in the scientific community have unprecedented opportunities to contribute to the betterment of mankind, and I am excited to be a contributor and facilitator in those efforts.

At Clemson, Gulari oversees 15 academic departments and 11 research centers with about 5,000 students in 23 undergraduate and 45 graduate degree programs.

Our distinctive college structure, which combines engineering and science disciplines into a single academic unit, provides unique opportunities for collaboration, Gulari said, and I have taken every opportunity to further a philosophy of partnership.

To inspire interdisciplinary collaboration among faculty, Gulari established the IDEaS Professorship — for Inquiry, Discovery in Engineering and Science — which recognizes innovative classroom teaching, scholarship supported with external funding and collaborative research. She personally endowed a leadership and service award to faculty who thrive in the college’s collaborative environment.

That philosophy drives her to help make Clemson’s International Center for Automotive Research a model research campus where university, industry and government organizations could collaborate in an advanced-technology environment.

CU-ICAR is one of the most revolutionary public-private projects in the world, and it is directly fueling a knowledge base critical to the automotive industry while creating unprecedented opportunities for economic development, Gulari said.

I believe the only way to successfully address the global challenges we face today is through collaborative partnerships, she said. As NSB vice chairman, I hope to promote that view and encourage others to adopt this approach.

Before joining Clemson as dean, Gulari was on the faculty at Wayne State University, where she chaired the chemical engineering and materials science department from 1993 to 2000. While at Wayne State, she also was the chief technology officer of nanoSEC, a startup company for manufacturing composites using supercritical fluid processing.

Gulari received a bachelor’s degree from Robert College in Istanbul, Turkey, and master’s degree and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. She spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

She is a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the 2003 chairwoman for the Council of Chemical Research and a member of the executive board of the Committee of the Advancement of Women Chemists and Chemical Engineers.

From 2000 to 2004, Gulari worked at the National Science Foundation, where she was the director of the Chemical and Transport Systems Division in the Engineering Directorate. She also was acting assistant director for the Engineering Directorate at the foundation from September 2001 to April 2003.

Her research interests include thermodynamics and transport properties of polymer solutions and melts, materials processing with supercritical fluids, nanoscale fillers for composites and light-scattering and optical methods for probing microstructure of complex fluids.