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New associate dean aims high

 

Playing with the big boys, or ranking in the top 20 public engineering schools, is how Balaji Narasimhan sums up his goal for the College of Engineering. As newly appointed associate dean for research and economic development, Narasimhan says a ranking such as that would be the holy grail, but it’s what he’ll be working toward.

Narasimhan, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, stepped down as director of the Institute for Combinatorial Discovery and gave up his teaching duties to take on the associate dean position, effective August 8.

He describes the position as having three main components: enhancing the research enterprise of the college, overseeing graduate education, and promoting economic development.

“If we do these three things well, it will automatically transpire into stronger graduate programs, more research dollars, higher visibility, and hopefully a higher ranking for the departments in the college,” said Narasimhan.

He added that he will be stepping into big shoes once worn by Ted Okiishi. “Ted’s work over the last 12 years has really provided a platform for me and Dean (Mark J.) Kushner to launch Iowa State into a leadership position,” he said.

A number-one priority for the new associate dean will be to nucleate teams of researchers to work on large-scale center-type grants. The plan is for teams to be in place before agency proposal invitations come. Then, teams can act immediately and submit strong proposals, a preemptive approach rather than a responsive one.

“My philosophy in all of this is to grow the pie,” said Narasimhan.  “I’m not a big fan of divvying up the pie, but how can we grow the pie? If we bring in new money, everybody wins.”

In overseeing graduate education Narasimhan will work closely with the DOGEs (directors of graduate education). A main goal will be to increase the number of PhD degrees granted.

“The number of PhDs we produce in this college is off by a factor of two if we want to compete for the top 20,” said Narasimhan. “I’m very interested in going after companies and getting named fellowships for graduate students.”

His target is to acquire 20 new fellowships. He envisions a designated “research day” where companies attend to hear graduate students present their research.  

Narasimhan just finished a three-year appointment as the DOGE in the CBE department. He also brings to the job experience working with cross-disciplinary teams to obtain large-scale funding, something he’s done with his own work in engineered biomaterials. For example, last year he was a key player in acquiring a $5 million grant from the Navy to develop new vaccines against bioterrorism agents.

Research and graduate education, he says, are his passions, and stepping into these aspects of the job are a “no brainer.” The economic development aspect of his new position—increasing commercialization and patents—is also a natural progression of his career as he contemplates commercializing his work in single-dose vaccines. 

The vaccines involve biomaterials compatible with humans that can release components at a controlled rate, degrading slowly like a bar of soap.  Each vaccine, encapsulated in its own nanoparticle, would act independently, releasing at different times to avoid adverse reactions. It would allow a child to take one vaccine instead of receiving the typical booster shots, thus reducing the total number of shots (currently approximately 18).

Nanoscale materials are the basis of all of Narasimhan’s research. Other projects include studying bacteria that make magnetic nanoparticles and trying to understand how nanoparticles aggregate.

And what about his own research as he makes a new home in Marston Hall?

“I am not giving it up at all,” he answered quickly. “I have seven graduate students. My goal is to not let that number dwindle.”

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