Thomas E. Mallouk, Vagelos Professor of Energy Research, assumed the role of Department Chair effective July 1, 2023. Tom succeeds David Christianson, the Roy and Diana Vagelos Professor in Chemistry and Chemical Biology, who has served as Chair for the past 5 years.
Tom's research focuses on multiple problems in materials chemistry, including photoelectrochemistry, electrochemical energy conversion, low-dimensional physical phenomena, and motion on the nanoscale. Tom received his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Brown University, where he did undergraduate research with Aaron Wold. He worked in industry for two years and was a Ph.D. student from 1979-1983 with Neil Bartlett at the University of California, Berkeley. Following postdoctoral work with Mark Wrighton at MIT (1983-85) he held faculty positions at the University of Texas at Austin (1985-93) and at Penn State University (1993-2019). He is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.