Advanced Leadership

Stuart J. Rowan
Faculty Director, the Institute for Advanced Materials at Case Western Reserve University

The Kent H. Smith Professor of Engineering in the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering, Rowan has secondary appointments in both the biomedical engineering and chemistry departments at Case Western Reserve University.

Rowan received his BSc (with honors) in chemistry in 1991 from the University of Glasgow, where he stayed to work on supramolecular crystal engineering of inclusion compounds, receiving his PhD in 1995. In 1994, he moved to the chemistry department at the University of Cambridge. A year later, he was appointed a research associate of Girton College, Cambridge.

He moved across the Atlantic—and across the continental United States—to continue his postdoctoral studies in 1998 at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1999 he joined the faculty at Case Western Reserve University as an assistant professor in the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2005. He became a full professor in 2008 and in 2009 was named the Kent H. Smith Professor of Engineering. In 2010 he also became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC).

Rowan's research interests focus on the potential of dynamic chemistry in the construction and properties of polymeric materials. His group works on the development of new stimuli-responsive, supramolecular polymers, self-healing materials, metal-containing polymers, gels, (green) nanocomposites, biomaterials, surface assembly and developing new synthetic methods for the construction of complex polymeric architectures.

He is currently a member of the editorial board of Journal of Materials Chemistry and has been on the editorial advisory board for Macromolecules. He also sits on the ACS PMSE council. He is an NSF-CAREER award winner and has been published in more than 80 scientific papers, book chapters and reviews.