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López selected to lead Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering

April 7, 2024 - By Kim Delker

photo: Gabriel Lopez
Gabriel P. López

Gabriel P. López, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, has been selected to serve as interim chair of the UNM Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, effective immediately.

López’s interim appointment will extend through June 30, 2025.

Donna Riley, Jim and Ellen King Dean of Engineering and Computing, made the selection following the resignation of Sang M. Han, who stepped down as chair to focus more time on the development of his company, Osazda Energy. Han will continue to be a professor in the department as he directs the growth of his company, which was formed from technology he developed at UNM.

A native of New Mexico, López joined UNM in 1993 as a faculty member in both chemical engineering and chemistry. In 2005, he became the founding director of UNM’s Center for Biomedical Engineering as well as the biomedical engineering graduate program. In 2010, he joined Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering as a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering while remaining an adjunct professor at UNM. He served five years on the STC.UNM Board of Directors (now UNM Rainforest Innovations) and was inducted as a STC.UNM (UNM Rainforest Innovations) Innovation Fellow in 2016.

He returned full time to UNM and was selected as UNM’s vice president for research in 2015, a role he served in until 2020.

López earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Colorado in 1985 and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Washington in 1991. His research interests include biointerfacial phenomena, biomaterials, self-assembly, and bioanalytical microsystems to address problems in medicine, biotechnology and environmental quality.

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