Pamela M. Norris, executive dean of the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science and Frederick Tracy Morse Professor of the UVA Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, has been named vice provost of research at George Washington University, the school announced Thursday. Her appointment begins Nov. 1.
“Pam is an exceptional leader with a strong vision for higher education’s potential to make the world a better place,” UVA Engineering Dean Jennifer West said. “Her impact on research and education will be felt at UVA and beyond for many years to come.”
In the announcement of Norris’ appointment, GW’s interim provost, Christopher Alan Bracey, said, “Dr. Norris joins us at an exciting time for research at GW, when our faculty and students are back in full force in our labs and other research spaces on campus and are committing themselves to scholarship and discovery. The continued growth and expansion of our research enterprise across all fields, including the physical sciences, arts and humanities, is a critical aspect of how GW will fulfill its promise as an innovative institution of higher education, and Dr. Norris’ years of experience as a research administrator and renowned scholar make her a perfect choice to lead the future of research at GW.”
Norris joined the UVA faculty in 1994 and earned the rank of full professor in 2004. She came to UVA after earning her Ph.D. at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1992 and conducting postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, with mentor Chang-Lin Tien, a pioneer in the field of microscale heat transfer and the university’s late chancellor and professor of mechanical engineering.
“I accepted a position at the University of Virginia, the flagship university in my home state, where I knew I could make a difference,” Norris said. “The leadership and faculty at UVA Engineering are passionate about making game-changing societal advances, developing the next generation of engineering leaders and approaching problems with a diverse and collaborative mindset. I knew these values matched my ideals and aspirations.”
In her role as executive dean, she leads academic and research functions within the school and collaborates with the dean and the Leadership Council, made up of department chairs and Dean’s Office leaders, to develop the school’s strategic direction. Before serving as executive dean, she consecutively held other administrative positions that helped drive strategy for research, including the executive associate dean for research and the associate dean of research and graduate programs. In fiscal year 2021, the school’s sponsored research funding reached nearly $86 million – a 95% increase from 2016.
Norris routinely chairs and speaks at international conferences and has published more than 100 heavily cited refereed journal papers. She is recognized globally as a leader in the fields of nanoscale heat transfer and aerogel research, and she is an honorary member and fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. She has drawn more than $25 million in research grants to UVA.
Norris’ pioneering innovations started very early in her academic career. As an undergraduate mechanical engineering student at Old Dominion University, she led a capstone team that developed a new design for an oxygen processor. This type of processor converts carbon dioxide to oxygen and is critical for space missions because rocket propellent needs oxygen to work. The team’s 1986 proof of concept, developed in just four years with small grants from the Planetary Society and the NASA Advanced Space System Design Program, later became the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE, and was successfully used to create oxygen from the Mars atmosphere, which is mostly carbon dioxide, on the recent Mars Perseverance Rover expedition. In addition to aiding propulsion, MOXIE could eventually provide breathable oxygen for astronauts when human missions go to Mars.
Fast forward to Norris’ first grant at UVA, where she studied the way energy transports through different materials on a microscale. She needed aerogels – ultra-low-density, highly porous solids – for this research but found them cost-prohibitive. “So I made them myself,” she said. Norris became fascinated with the material, which she says looks like “a piece of San Francisco fog” because it is 98% air, and founded the Aerogel Research Lab.
In another aerogel project, she received funding from the U.S. Department of Defense to create aerogels that could be used to detect airborne biological warfare agents. The aerogel material is designed with specific molecular receptors. When the receptors detect hostile agents, the material changes properties, which acts as an alarm. This project was the leading edge of what has now become a substantial area of study in the fields of mechanical engineering and materials science: smart materials.
Norris holds patents for applications of aerogels in areas ranging from biological warfare detection to thermal insulation to lab-on-a-chip.
