University announces vice provost for research

Trustee professor of materials science and engineering and Director of Penn’s Nano/Bio Interface Center Dawn Bonnell was appointed vice provost for research on Tuesday.

This appointment comes after her predecessor, Steven Fluharty, was appointed Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, and less than a week after Penn Law School professor Anita Allen was announced as the new vice provost for faculty.

Bonnell, like Fluharty and Allen, will officially assume her position on July 1. Her duties will include developing and implementing policies that promote research excellence and managing both research infrastructure and strategic efforts in promoting research commercialization.

“Dawn is an incredibly talented scientist and widely respected administrative leader,” Penn President Amy Gutmann said in a statement. “Her cutting-edge research in Nanotechnology is a model for the kind of cross-disciplinary integration and innovation she will foster as Vice Provost for Research.”

Bonnell noted that “one of the exciting challenges” she will face as Vice Provost for Research is “to help move forward Penn’s initiative on taking the research from the laboratory … into the marketplace and into a position where it can help society.”

Bonnell has taught at Penn since 1988 and is a leader in nanotechnology research. As the founding director of the Nano/Bio Interface Center at Penn — which explores the intersection of technology and biology at the nanoscale level — Bonnell has worked with many departments to expand Penn’s excellence in scientific research.

“The Nano/Bio Interface Center is an example of a center that brings together faculty from across campus around a particular set of research goals — in this case, the interface of biological systems and physical systems,” she said. “It’s one of Penn’s identifying, distinguishing characteristics.”

Bonnell began working in nanotechnology at the time that the scanning tunneling microscope was invented. “It opened a whole range of new areas of scientific exploration and some of ours has been in the area of biomolecular interfaces and also in the area of material science,” she said.

Her research involves studying the properties of surfaces at the atomic scale in order to understand the behavior of a wide range of devices. Her work comprises the first ever imaging of atoms on oxide surfaces as well as new approaches to garnering light energy and innovating nanostructures.

Additionally, Bonnell has authored over 200 papers and is the editor of seven books. She is one of seven awardees of the Staudinger-Durrer Medal from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and has served as President of the American Vacuum Society and Vice President of the American Ceramic Society. This year, she was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.