Professor Nitin Padture Named Director of IMNI

Brown University School of Engineering Professor Nitin Padture has been named director of the Institute for Molecular and Nanoscale Innovation (IMNI), effective January 1, 2014. He succeeds Professor Robert Hurt, who served as director since the founding of IMNI in 2007.

"IMNI's mission is aligned with the proposed strategic initiative for the University focused on 'using science and technology to improve lives.' We are very fortunate to have identified a dedicated, talented leader for IMNI and look forward to building on its history of success," said David Savitz, Vice President for Research.

IMNI serves as an umbrella organization to support centers and collaborative research teams in materials science, and in the molecular and nanosciences. IMNI is a "polydisciplinary" venture with more than 60 faculty members, representing nine departments across campus. IMNI also serves as a focal point for interaction with industry, government, and affiliated hospitals. IMNI supports scientific team building, proposal preparation, block grant management, seminars, special functions, and nanoscience course offerings across campus. IMNI also manages major research instrumentation facilities, including Electron Microscopy, Microelectronics, and NanoTools.

Padture, Professor of Engineering and Director of the Center for Advanced Materials Research at Brown, joined the Brown faculty in January of 2012. Previously he was College of Engineering Distinguished Professor at The Ohio State University (OSU), and also the founding director of the NSF-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at OSU.

Padture received B.Tech. in metallurgical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (1985), M.S. in ceramic engineering from Alfred University (1987), and Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from Lehigh University (1991).

He was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology for three years, before joining the University of Connecticut faculty in January of 1995 as an assistant professor. He became an associate professor in 1998 and was promoted to professor in 2003. He served as interim department head at UConn before moving to Ohio State in January 2005.

Padture's teaching and research interests are in the broad areas of synthesis/processing and properties of advanced materials used in applications ranging from jet engines to solar cells to computer chips. Specifically, he has active research in tailoring of structural ceramic composites and coatings, and functional nanomaterials including graphene and perovskites.

Padture has published over 130 journal papers, which have been cited about 6,000 times. Padture is a co-inventor of four patents, and he has delivered some 150 invited/keynote/plenary talks in the U.S. and abroad. A fellow of the American Ceramic Society, he has received that society's Roland B. Snow, Robert L. Coble, and Richard M. Fulrath awards. Padture is also a recipient of the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, and he is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the editor of Scripta Materialia, one of the leading journals in the field of materials science and engineering.