Troy, N.Y. — Professor Shekhar Garde, a rising star in
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's School of Engineering, was
this week named the new head of the university's Howard. P.
Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.
Garde began his new post on Oct. 15.
Garde, whose research interests include fundamental
understanding of biological and nanoscopic systems using
molecular theory, modeling, and simulation, is among the first
wave of researchers to work with and harness the power of
Rensselaer's new 100-teraflop supercomputing center.
“Professor Garde is an outstanding engineer and a natural
leader for the Department of Chemical and Biological
Engineering," said Alan Cramb, dean of Rensselaer's School of
Engineering. “Shekhar has strong support from the faculty
members in his department and I am sure we will see the
department continue to climb in the rankings over the next five
years."
Garde received his bachelor's degree in 1992 from the
University of Bombay and earned his doctorate in chemical
engineering in 1997 from the University of Delaware. He joined
Rensselaer's School of Engineering in 1999, following a
prestigious two-year Director's Fellowship at Los Alamos
National Laboratory.
In 2006, Garde was named the Elaine S. and Jack S. Parker
Career Development Chaired Professor in Engineering. Through
his affiliations with Rensselaer's Center for Biotechnology and
Interdisciplinary Studies and the Nanoscale Science &
Engineering Center for Directed Assembly of Nanostructures at
Rensselaer funded by the National Science Foundation, he
collaborates with researchers from a wide range of academic
disciplines to further the fundamental understanding of
molecular-scale processes that lie at the foundation of bio and
nanotechnologies.
Over the past decade, Garde has written and published more
than 50 academic papers on research funded by several
collaborative grants from the National Science Foundation,
National Institutes of Health, and the American Chemical
Society's Petroleum Research Fund. He is also no stranger to
awards and honors. In 2001, Garde won the National Science
Foundation's CAREER award, which the NSF designates as the
“highest honor bestowed by the United States government on
scientists and engineers beginning their independent
careers."
In 2001, Garde was inducted into Rensselaer's Sigma-Xi
honors society. Two years later, he received Rensselaer's
School of Engineering Excellence in Research Award, and then in
2004 he won the Rensselaer Faculty Early Career Award.
Garde, along with Professors Linda S. Schadler and Richard
W. Siegel in Materials Science and Engineering, is a driving
force behind Rensselaer's NSF-funded Molecularium project,
which aims to excite and energize children to think and learn
more about the atoms and molecules that make up our world. The
Molecularium animated film currently being distributed
nationwide combines elements of Garde's research using
molecular dynamics simulations with state-of-the-art
computer-generated animation to explore the states of matter —
solid, liquid, and gas — and to investigate the inner workings
of a living cell.
Garde's core research focuses on understanding and modeling
how biological molecules self-assemble in water-based
solutions. Water is essential to all of life's processes, he
says, and understanding how water molecules organize themselves
near surfaces of proteins, DNA, or other biomolecules, and how
that organization leads to interactions between those molecules
leading to assembly and hierarchical organization, is a grand
challenge. Garde's research group is developing theoretical
methods and state-of-the-art computer simulation and modeling
tools aimed at addressing this grand challenge.
As a whole, the faculty in Rensselaer's Department of
Chemical and Biological Engineering undertake a spectrum of
diverse research topics including advanced materials,
bioseparations, biomedical and biochemical engineering,
thermodynamics and transport phenomena at the micro and
nanoscale, polymers, and other fields at the intersection of
basic science, engineering, and technology.
Garde says that he is tremendously excited about the future
of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer. The
department recently expanded its ranks by hiring three
top-notch assistant professors — Peter Tessier, who started in
August, along with Pankaj Karande and Cynthia Collins, who will
begin in early 2008. Several key faculty members have recently
won major national and international awards, and others
professors are leading large, interdisciplinary research teams
and proposals, he said.
“We will continue to increase the intellectual capital of
the department by adding brilliant new faculty, graduate
students, and undergraduates," Garde said. “Our national
ranking is consistently moving up, and our goal is to be listed
among the top 20 chemical and biological engineering programs
in the nation in the next few years."
For more information on Rensselaer's Department of Chemical
and Biological Engineering, please visit: http://www.eng.rpi.edu/chme
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