Daniel Lacks is the Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary and International Initiatives and the C. Benson Branch Professor of Chemical Engineering. Lacks leads the university’s efforts in developing and enhancing interdisciplinary and international collaborations across campus and with affiliated partners. He also oversees the Inamori Center for Ethics and Excellence, Office of Interprofessional and Interdisciplinary Education and Research, Siegal Lifelong Learning, Social Justice Institute and Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship.
Prior to assuming his current role, Lacks served as the Associate Dean for Academics in the Case School of Engineering and as the Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Lacks has been a professor at CWRU since 2003.
Lacks has worked extensively with universities and laboratories in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, South America and Europe. Lacks developed study abroad opportunities that brought hundreds of students to Africa and Asia, including the first-ever U.S. academic program in Myanmar. He developed multi-year National Science Foundation-funded research programs at the University of Botswana and Lanzhou University. He served on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Brazilian Nanotechnology National Laboratory, as a Fulbright Specialist at Yangon Technological University in Myanmar, as a Philippines Development Foundation Visiting Professor at the University of Cebu, as an evaluator for the accreditation of engineering programs in several countries in the Middle East, and on PhD committees at universities in Finland and Austria. He led summer-long professional development programs at CWRU for dozens of colleagues from Africa and the Middle East, supported by grants from the US State Department, and he was honored with the Service to Society Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers "for service to society through leading professional development activities for engineering faculty and other professionals from countries that have been experiencing conflict and/or infrastructure limitations."
Currently, Lacks serves on the Board of Directors at STEMpower, an NGO based in Ethiopia that has established over one hundred STEM centers across sub-Saharan Africa. He also leads the endowed Gelfand Global STEMpower Initiative at CWRU, which funds CWRU graduate students and visiting faculty coming from Africa to work on projects in collaboration with STEMpower.
Lacks carries out research on the properties of materials, with applications ranging from the environment to industry. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and an International Fellow of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering Static Electricity in Industry Group. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Electrostatics and as the President of the Electrostatics Society of America.
Lacks received his B.S. in chemical engineering from Cornell University, and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University.
Research Information
Research Interests
1. Molecular simulation of materials. We model materials at the molecular level so that the properties of the material can be predicted from first principles – i.e., without relying on experimental data. In these studies, large scale computer simulations are carried out to determine the dynamic trajectories of the constituent atoms, and from these trajectories the properties of the material are derived using statistical mechanics. Our focus is on the deformation and flow properties of disordered systems, including liquids, glassy solids, and biological systems such as proteins.
2. Triboelectric charging. Rubbing two surfaces can generate electrostatic charges on the surfaces. For example, this charging often occurs when you walk across a rug – and you find out about it when you touch a doorknob and feel the shock. While this triboelectric charging is very common, and can have important consequences in many diverse settings, it is surprising that the fundamental physics that underlie the charging is not well understood. We are studying this phenomenon with a combined experimental and theoretical approach.
Publications
- E. Hillman, D. Lacks, M. Cohen, “Antimicrobial and foamable alcoholic compositions”, US Patent 11,737,457 (2023).
- C. E. Lesher, J. Dannberg, G. H. Barfod, N. R. Bennett, J. J. G. Glessner, D. J. Lacks, J. M. Brenan, “Iron isotope fractionation at the core-mantle boundary by thermodiffusion”, Nature Geoscience 13, 382 (2020).
- J. R. Toth, S. Rajupet, H. Squire, B. Volbers, J. Zhou, L. Xie, R. M. Sankaran, D. J. Lacks, “Electrostatic forces alter particle size distributions in atmospheric dust”, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 20, 3181 (2020).
- S. Rajupet, D. J. Lacks, “Harvesting Energy from Falling Droplets”, Physics 13, 125 (2020).
- D. J. Lacks, T. Shinbrot, “Longstanding and unresolved issues in triboelectric charging”, Nature Reviews Chemistry 3, 465 (2019).