September 1, 2020

Carbon Co-Founder & Board Chair Dr. Joseph DeSimone Joins Stanford University

We congratulate Carbon Co-founder and Board Chair, Dr. Joseph DeSimone, who will join Stanford University’s faculty on September 1st! After a thirty-year career at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and NC State University, DeSimone will join Stanford University and will hold the titles of:

  • Professor, Department of Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine
  • Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University School of Engineering
  • Professor, Stanford University Graduate School of Business (by Courtesy)

This discipline-spanning appointment will allow him to build an academic program at Stanford at the intersection of medicine, engineering, and business. DeSimone will also be a faculty member in the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS) within the School of Medicine.

“I’ve met so many amazing people already and am extremely humbled by the wealth of expertise in different disciplines and schools at Stanford. Helping bridge these schools provides immense opportunity for new ideas and ways of translating research and discoveries into products that advance human health and well-being.”

DeSimone has had a distinguished record of accomplishment in North Carolina over the last 30 years, including teaching thousands of students and graduating over 80 Ph.D. students under his mentorship, with half being women and those underrepresented in STEM fields. He is also responsible for raising approximately $100 million in external grant funding and spearheading multiple research initiatives, including a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center on Environmental Responsible Solvents and Processes (along with Ruben Carbonell at NC State), as well as one of the five federally-funded Centers for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence funded by the National Cancer Institute and the Chapel Hill Nanofabrication and Analytical Laboratory (CHANL). Based on DeSimone’s achievements and continued research collaborations in North Carolina, he will be recognized as the Chancellor’s Eminent Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

DeSimone will continue to chair Carbon’s Board while building his academic program at Stanford. “We are already thinking about new ways to apply 3D printing to help babies with plagiocephaly and cleft palates and new ways to deliver advanced medicines and vaccines in a targeted fashion. We also want to examine the digital transformation in manufacturing, and what that means for supply chains and innovative products developed with the most revolutionary technologies out there,” adds DeSimone. “Being at the intersection of medicine and engineering, and joining research with efforts through GSB provides so much opportunity—this also includes connecting what we’re doing at Carbon with the talent and capabilities at Stanford to use 3D printing to advance what’s possible in medical technologies.”