Eric Dufresne Named Director of Yale's Center for Engineering Innovation and Design

Dean Kyle Vanderlick has announced that Professor Eric Dufresne will serve as Director of the Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design, effective July 1.

Professor Dufresne’s background positions him well to lead the new Center for Engineering Innovation and Design when it opens at the start of the fall semester. Before coming to Yale, Dufresne co-founded a nanophotonics start-up, Arryx, which is now a subsidiary of Haemonetics, a provider of blood processing supplies and services. Dufresne shared an R&D 100 award in 2002 for the invention and commercialization of holographic optical tweezers. As a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard, he was a founding instructor of the course “Innovation in Science & Engineering.”

Since joining the Yale faculty in 2004, Dufresne has established himself as a leader in the interdisciplinary field of soft materials. Collaborating with a number of faculty across the university, his current research projects extend from the mechanics of skin cells to the optical properties of particle suspensions. While Dufresne’s home department is Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, his broad research interests have led to joint appointments in Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Applied Physics, Physics and Cell Biology. Dufresne’s research is also informed by ongoing interactions with industrial partners. At Yale, his laboratory has received financial support from Unilever, Cabot, and Amore Pacific. 

Dean Vanderlick cited Dufresne's dedication to teaching and mentorship, industry experience, and wide-ranging collaborative research efforts as invaluable qualities for the Director of the highly anticipated Center.

"Dufresne will build upon the momentum that our faculty initiated to bring to life the new SEAS Center for Engineering Innovation and Design," said Vanderlick. "We are delighted to have him as a leader within our ever-expanding culture of engineering."