Iain McCulloch, a chemist who has produced quite a few breakthroughs on the intersection of vitality, electronics, and biology, has been named the subsequent director of the Andlinger Middle for Vitality and the Setting. He’ll be a part of the Princeton college as a professor of electrical and pc engineering and the Andlinger Middle for Vitality and the Setting. Each appointments will take impact January 16, 2024.

McCulloch involves Princeton and the Andlinger Middle from the College of Oxford, the place he’s a Professor of Polymer Chemistry. He beforehand served as director of the King Abdullah College of Science and Know-how (KAUST) Photo voltaic Middle and co-directed a middle for plastic electronics at Imperial School London, following practically 20 years main varied industrial labs.

“Iain is a visionary and collaborative chief who will considerably improve the Andlinger Middle’s analysis portfolio and influence in advancing sustainable applied sciences,” mentioned Andrea Goldsmith, dean of the College of Engineering and Utilized Science and the Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor of Electrical and Pc Engineering. “His personal analysis excellence, expertise switch success, trade expertise, and profitable observe report of main interdisciplinary groups to handle the most important environmental challenges going through humanity add vital worth to our Andlinger Middle, the varsity of engineering, Princeton, and your complete area. We’re extraordinarily lucky to have Iain as the subsequent director of our Andlinger Middle.”

McCulloch will succeed Yueh-Lin (Lynn) Lavatory, the Theodora D. ’78 and William H. Walton III ’74 Professor in Engineering and professor of chemical and organic engineering. Lavatory formally stepped down as director in 2021, and Claire Gmachl, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Electrical Engineering, has served as interim director for the previous two years. Gmachl led the worldwide seek for a brand new director.

“A dedication to collaborative, translational analysis is woven into the constitution of the Andlinger Middle,” mentioned Gmachl. “Iain has a robust observe report of reducing throughout disciplinary siloes to rework breakthrough analysis into scalable, real-world options. He’s additionally an extremely gifted staff builder who routinely forges new collaborations in each the educational and trade arenas. I’ve little doubt that he’ll proceed to develop the Andlinger Middle’s influence on nationwide and worldwide vitality and environmental analysis.”

As a supplies chemist, McCulloch has devoted his profession to designing and growing distinctive carbon-based polymers which might be central to a variety of revolutionary applied sciences, from electronics to renewable vitality. His translational work has facilitated essential advances within the fields of optics, electronics, vitality, and organic sensing, and most of the supplies he invented have change into the usual for analysis use around the globe.

His breakthrough work to develop new supplies for photo voltaic cells, for instance, reinvigorated analysis curiosity into natural photo voltaic cells, another expertise to standard silicon-based photo voltaic cells, after progress to spice up their effectivity had stagnated. One other line of McCulloch’s analysis has yielded a completely new approach of harnessing photo voltaic vitality to generate invaluable merchandise similar to hydrogen, a sustainable strategy to help the rising hydrogen economic system.

All through his educational profession, McCulloch has drawn from his intensive background in trade, during which he led labs in New Jersey and the UK to design, develop, and commercialize polymers for purposes together with photo voltaic cells, electronics, and drug supply. His firsthand trade expertise offers him with a broad perspective of not solely how one can develop cutting-edge supplies, but in addition how one can effectively scale these supplies for widespread societal influence. Such a dedication to translating revolutionary analysis into real-world options is a key tenet of the Andlinger Middle’s mission.

“The Andlinger Middle’s interdisciplinary strategy to problem-solving is what we want extra of in academia,” McCulloch mentioned. “I see unimaginable potential for the Andlinger Middle to proceed advancing the worldwide vitality transition, and I sit up for working with college members, early-career and scholar researchers, and trade specialists to contribute to the Andlinger Middle’s current experience and assist increase its attain into new and thrilling vitality and environmental horizons.”  

McCulloch acquired each a B.Sc. and Ph.D. in chemistry from the College of Strathclyde. Following his roles in trade, he joined Imperial School London as Professor of Polymer Supplies in 2007 and moved to Oxford in 2020. From 2014 to 2021, McCulloch was concurrently appointed as Professor of Chemical Science at KAUST and served as Director of KAUST Photo voltaic Middle from 2016 to 2021.

McCulloch was acknowledged in 2011 as one of many high supplies scientists on this planet between 2000 and 2010 and has been named on the Clarivate Extremely Cited Researchers listing yearly since its inception. Amongst different achievements, McCulloch is a fellow of the Royal Society, the European Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society of Chemistry.