Growing Our Scholarly Community

New Faculty

Emily A. Carter, former dean of Princeton University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science and founding director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, rejoined Princeton, effective January 2022. She holds the Gerhard R. Andlinger ’52 Professor in Energy and the Environment and is professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, and applied and computational mathematics. In addition to her Princeton professorships, Carter also assumed the newly created role of senior strategic advisor for sustainability science at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Previously, Carter had served as the executive vice chancellor and provost at the University of California, Los Angeles. In December 2021, Carter received Materials Research Society’s Materials Theory Award for research leading to the fundamental understanding of materials’ structure and behavior.

Leadership and Growth

Craig B. Arnold, the Susan Dod Brown Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, was named Princeton University’s Vice Dean for Innovation, effective July 1, 2022. He served for seven years as director of the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials. As vice dean, Arnold is tasked with leading Princeton Innovation, whose mission is to encourage a culture of innovation on campus and engage with various external partners from industrial practitioners to technology investors.

José Avalos was promoted to associate professor of chemical and biological engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, effective July 1, 2022. Avalos is a leading expert on synthetic biology and metabolic engineering for clean energy and sustainable manufacturing. He joined Princeton in 2015 and is also affiliated with Princeton’s Department of Molecular Biology and the High Meadows Environmental Institute.

Elke Weber, the associate director for education at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, was named the director of Princeton University’s Fung Global Fellows Program. Weber, also the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment and professor of psychology and public affairs, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, assumed the two-year position at the program, effective July 1, 2022. Under Weber’s directorship, international research scholars will convene around the topic of “sustainable futures.”

David Gates, principal research physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), assumed the position of senior research scholar at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, as of February 1, 2022. Gates, head of PPPL’s Advanced Projects Department, is a leading researcher on stellarators, a nuclear fusion device with external magnets that coil around and confine plasma.

Photos: (Top) Emily A. Carter, Craig B. Arnold (Photos by David Kelly Crow)