Rodney Priestley serves as the vice dean for innovation, associate director of the Princeton Center for Complex Materials, and director of graduate studies for the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. He is the faculty co-director of the newly created Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellows Program, aimed at enhancing diversity and addressing underrepresentation across campus, and the faculty adviser to the National Society of Black Engineers student chapter. He is also affiliated with the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials.
Priestley came to Princeon after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles in Paris. He received his doctorate in chemical engineering from Northwestern University and his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Texas Tech University.
His many honors and awards include being named as a 2018 World Economic Forum Young Scientist, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.
He has also been honored for his teaching and mentorship, including, in 2014, selection in The Root 100 list of most influential African Americans, and in the American Society for Engineering Education’s list of 20 Under 40 Inspiring Young Faculty.