Pradeep P. Fulay, professor of materials science and mechanical engineering in the Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, will assume the position of West Virginia University’s Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources associate dean for research, effective May 31.

Fulay will be responsible for leading the College’s faculty in research, research program development and intellectual property and commercialization activities.

“Dr. Fulay’s expertise and experience in research and research administration will help our College move forward in many important ways,” said Gene Cilento, Glen H. Hiner Dean of the College. “I look for him to be a leader in research, including being a mentor for our new faculty; to provide research administrative support for our larger research programs; and to build new interdisciplinary programs within our College and across campus.”

Fulay received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, with honors, from the Indian institute of Technology in Bombay, India. He earned a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the University of Arizona in 1989. Upon graduation, he joined the faculty at Pitt, where his research and teaching interests lie primarily in the area of the science of chemical synthesis and processing of smart materials and structures. Fulay’s research in the area of synthesis and processing of electronic and magnetic materials has been recognized internationally.

Fulay is an elected Fellow of the American Ceramic Society. He has several publications in reputed journals and conference proceedings, three U.S. issued patents and has edited one book. He is the author of the textbook, “Electronic, Magnetic, and Optical Properties of Materials,” published in May 2010, and co-author of the fifth edition of “The Science of Engineering of Materials,” a leading undergraduate textbook of materials science.

For the past three years, Fulay served as a program director in the Engineering Directorate at the National Science Foundation, in the Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems Division. As a program director he managed a budget of approximately $10-12 million to support research in the areas of advanced nanoelectronic, magnetic, and optical inorganic and organic materials and devices.

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CONTACT: Mary C. Dillon
304-293-4086; mary.dillon@mail.wvu.edu