Professor Eric Garfunkel
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Professor Eric Garfunkel
Board Chairperson
Profile

Professor Eric Garfunkel has been appointed the BITRI Board Chairperson with effect from 1st August 2024 for a three-year term ending 31st July 2027. Prof Garfunkel is a distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Physics at Rutgers University in the USA. He is also the Vice President for Global Affairs at the same university, responsible for the university’s internationalization efforts, including study abroad and global education, cross-cultural and global programming, support of international partnerships, and services for visiting students and scholars. During his almost four decades at Rutgers, Prof. Garfunkel played a leading role in the formation and operations of two multidisciplinary nanoscience and technology centers that focused on atomic scale design and manipulation of materials and devices. He also served as Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.  His recent research has focused on the synthesis and characterization of materials and devices that can be used for alternative energy (solar, hydrogen and energy storage) and nanoelectronics. He has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the Semiconductor Research Corporation and industry. Prof Garfunkel has held visiting professorships in Germany, China, Italy, and France. He is currently involved in a range of science diplomacy projects, including developing global partnerships and research collaborations with African universities, and he has helped lead the international activities of the Materials Research Society for two decades.  He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Berkeley in 1983 and his bachelor’s from Haverford College in 1978. Before joining Rutgers, he was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Paris-Sud in Orsay, France, and at Fudan University in Shanghai, China.