Bio

As NC State’s chief academic officer, he will be responsible for helping to shape the institution’s academic mission. He most recently served as the Louis Martin-Vega Dean of Engineering at NC State.

Previously, Pfaendtner held appointments at UW as professor of chemistry, associate vice provost for research computing and senior data science fellow at the university’s eScience Institute, and at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as a senior scientist.

Pfaendtner serves on the Northwestern University Chemical and Biological Engineering External Advisory Board and is senior editor for the Journal of Physical Chemistry. In 2022, he became a member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences and received the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Computational Molecular Science and Engineering Forum Impact Award. Other awards and honors he has received include the University of Washington College of Engineering Faculty Junior Innovator Award, the University of Washington Presidential Distinguished Teaching Award, the American Chemical Society OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award, and he was named a U.S. National Academy of Science Kavli Fellow.

Pfaendtner’s research has focused on using computer simulations to understand and control molecular scale driving forces for a wide range of applications spanning biotechnology to advanced materials. His lab at UW helped develop new methods to expand the capabilities of molecular simulation and use advanced research computing resources to solve challenging problems in the area of computational molecular science.

Pfaendtner holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Northwestern University. He completed a National Science Foundation international postdoctoral fellowship with a focus on “multiscale modeling of conformational change in macromolecular assemblies.”