The University of Texas at Austin
College of Engineering

Rodney S. Ruoff

Dr. Ruoff joined UT Austin in September, 2007, as an endowed chair in the Cockrell School of Engineering. He earned his Ph.D in Chemical Physics from the University of Illinois-Urbana in1988, and was a Fulbright Fellow in 1988-89 with the Max Planck Institute fuer Stroemungsforschung in Goettingen, Germany. Prior to joining UT-Austin, he was the John Evans Professor of Nanoengineering and a Full Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University and also the director of the Northwestern University Biologically Inspired Materials Institute from 2002-2007, a NASA URETI Institute also linked to Princeton University, UC-Santa Barbara, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and to a team of researchers working primarily at the NASA Langley Research Center.

Some major research interests include:

  • Research related to energy and the environment
  • Novel carbon materials (graphene, nanotubes, others)
  • Synthesis and properties of nanostructures
  • Fabrication and properties of nanocomposites
  • Nanomanipulation and nanorobotics
  • Particle electrokinetics and light scattering from particles
  • Instrument development and technology transition
  • New tools and methods for the biomedical sciences
Dr. Ruoff is editor of the Journal of Nanoengineering and Nanosystems, an Editorial Board Member for Composites, Science, and Technology, and Managing Editor and Editorial Board Member of NANO. In addition he has been a Distinguished Chair Visiting Professor at Sung Kyun Kwan University’s Advanced Institute of NanoTechnology (SAINT) since 2005.

Most Significant Journal Articles

  1. M. F. Yu, O. Lourie, M. J. Dyer, K. Moloni, T. F. Kelly and R. S. Ruoff, "Strength and breaking mechanism of multiwalled carbon nanotubes under tensile load", Science, (2000), 287, pp. 637-640
  2. Sasha Stankovich, Dmitriy A. Dikin, Geoffrey H. B. Dommett, Kevin M. Kohlhaas, Eric J. Zimney, Eric A. Stach, Richard D. Piner, SonBinh T. Nguyen and Rodney S. Ruoff, "Graphene-based composite materials", Nature, (2006), 42, pp. 282-285