Shashank Priya
(612) 624-5054 | spriya@umn.edu
224 McNamara Alumni Center, 200 Oak St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455
Shashank Priya serves as the University of Minnesota’s vice president for research and innovation, overseeing a $1+ billion research enterprise across all campuses and facilities. He manages units responsible for administration of sponsored projects, research and regulatory compliance, technology commercialization, and corporate engagement, as well as 12 interdisciplinary academic centers and institutes.
At UMN, he has expanded and strengthened research infrastructure and services, in conjunction with growing the research enterprise through new initiatives such as International Institute on Biosensing, the Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation Center, the Sustainable GeoCommunities program, a national security research initiative, a systemwide data science initiative, an artist-in-residence program, and a research partnership with North Carolina A&T, the nation’s largest historically Black university.
Further, he has grown the technology commercialization and corporate engagement efforts through new programs such as Discovery to Impact and Innovation Minnesota. Priya represents UMN research at a number of national and state organizations including APLU, AAU, Big Ten Academic Alliance, Council on Competitiveness, and MBOLD, and he is forging new international partnerships with research universities in India, Australia, Germany, and Korea, among others.
Prior to joining UMN, he served as associate vice president for research and director of strategic initiatives, and professor of materials science and engineering at Penn State. He has published over 500 academic journal articles and holds 12 patents.His research has focused on the conversion of one form of energy into another with a particular emphasis on three topical areas: multifunctional materials, energy harvesting, and bio-inspired robotics. He earned his BS from Allahabad University, his integrated ME from the Indian Institute of Science, and his PhD in materials engineering from Penn State. Throughout his career, Priya has earned numerous honors, including the D.T. Rankin Award and the Richard M. Fulrath Award from the American Ceramic Society. Pronunciation: shuh-SHAHNK PREE-yah.
Shashank Priya Curriculum Vitae
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