Brown University’s newest academic dean is a biomedical engineer whose research finds new ways to apply micro- and nanoscale technologies to deliver medicine to targeted sites in the human body.
Tejal Desai has been appointed dean of Brown’s School of Engineering. She is a professor at the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences at the University of California San Francisco; inaugural director of UCSF’s Health Innovations Via Engineering initiative; and leader of UCSF’s Therapeutic Microtechnology and Nanotechnology Laboratory.
Desai will begin on Sept. 1, succeeding Lawrence Larson, who served as the inaugural School of Engineering dean since 2011. Larson previously announced his plan to return to full-time teaching and research.
Desai is no stranger to Providence. She earned her undergraduate degree at Brown in 1994 and has served on the university's biomedical engineering advisory board.
Brown president Christina H. Paxson and provost Richard M. Locke announced the appointment on Wednesday and described Desai as a “transformative leader of programs that develop and support young researchers, foster cross-disciplinary approaches to critical engineering challenges and support diversity, equity and inclusion in the engineering field.”
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She's been at the cutting edge of her field for years. In 1999, when Desai was 27, MIT Technology Review reported that she was using "micromachining to create tiny implants that can carry needed cells into ailing bodies, all the while protecting them from attacks by the immune system." In one project, a tiny device delivered pancreatic cells to boost insulin production in diabetics.
Desai will lead the third-oldest engineering program in the U.S. and the oldest in the Ivy League. After its elevation to a school in 2010, engineering at Brown "has experienced dramatic growth with the addition of new faculty, surging research funding and the construction of a state-of-the-art, 80,000-square-foot research and teaching facility," the university said in a news release.
Desai plans to focus the school’s research enterprise on societal challenges while deepening academic collaboration within the school and across the campus. One of her key priorities will be diversifying the school’s student body while recruiting and retaining more faculty from historically underrepresented groups, the university said.
Desai said she looks forward to leading a program that was formative in her own career as a researcher and educator.
“Brown engineers tend to be people with a very particular drive to improve the world around them,” she said. “Students come to Brown because they want to make a positive impact on society and they see engineering as a powerful way to do that. I am excited about coming back to Brown to create a vision of how the school as a whole can represent those ideals, and how it can continue to be a leader in this intersection between engineering and societal impact.”
