Emily A. Carter

Emily A. Carter is the inaugural Gerhard R. Andlinger ’52 Professor in Energy and the Environment, and a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE), the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment (ACEE), and Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University. She is also Senior Strategic Advisor at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), a Department of Energy National Lab. A physical chemist by training, Dr. Carter began her independent academic career at UCLA in 1988, rising through the chemistry and biochemistry faculty ranks before moving to Princeton University in 2004, where she spent the next 15 years jointly appointed in mechanical and aerospace engineering and in applied and computational mathematics. While at Princeton, she held the Arthur W. Marks ’19 and the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professorships. After an international search, she was selected to be the Founding Director of Princeton’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. From 2010-2016, she oversaw the construction of its award-winning building and state-of-the-art facilities, the development of novel educational and research programs, and the hiring of its initial faculty and staff. After a national search, she served from 2016-2019 as Princeton’s Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), where she spearheaded major research (in bioengineering, data science, robotics, smart and resilient cities), education (e.g., new first-year engineering exposure to increase student retention), outreach (e.g., revamped marketing and communications), and diversity (e.g., hiring the inaugural associate dean for diversity and inclusion; creating extra-departmental junior faculty mentoring and minority faculty networking programs) initiatives. She then served as UCLA’s Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost (EVCP) and Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.  During her two and one-third years tenure as EVCP (2019-2021), she co-led UCLA through myriad crises including the COVID-19 pandemic and brought transformative change via new initiatives that support graduate students, diversity across the career arc, professional development, institutional effectiveness, DataX research and education, education innovation, flexible work, and more. Upon her departure, UCLA appointed her Distinguished Professor Emerita of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. She was recruited back to Princeton and PPPL in 2022 to lead the diversification of PPPL’s research portfolio beyond fusion to include electromanufacturing, aerosol science for the climate, microelectronics, and quantum information science, as inaugural Associate Laboratory Director for Applied Materials and Sustainability Sciences (AMSS), and a member of PPPL’s executive management team. After building out AMSS for nearly five years, Prof. Carter decided it was time for her to determine her next chapter, taking her first sabbatical in nearly 20 years. Dr. Carter maintains an active research presence, developing and applying quantum mechanical simulation techniques to enable discovery and design of molecules and materials for sustainable energy, and carbon mitigation. Her research is supported by multiple grants from the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.  The author of nearly 500 publications and patents, Dr. Carter has delivered over 600 invited and plenary lectures worldwide and serves on advisory boards spanning a wide range of disciplines. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, U.S. National Academy of Inventors, U.S. National Academy of Engineering, the European Academy of Sciences, and The Royal Society. Dr. Carter earned a B.S. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1982 (graduating Phi Beta Kappa) and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Caltech in 1987, followed by a brief postdoc at the University of Colorado, Boulder.