GREENSBORO – Dr. Salil Desai researches things most of us struggle to comprehend: How to deposit nano-scale droplets. Bio-chemical sensors. Regenerative tissue engineering.
Desai established NC A&T State University’s Integrated Nano and Bio Manufacturing Laboratory. He is creating new paths for drug delivery and was a key member of a team that developed a “bioprinter” for engineered tissues and organs.1
He’s secured more than $5 million in research funds from the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, Department of Energy and private industry.
Sure, that’s pretty technical.
Yet Desai’s approach as an Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering is a holistic, humanistic one: He says education amounts to “igniting the spirit of inquiry to transcend knowledge that benefits humankind.”
Students describe Desai as both informative and empathetic.
“Dr. Desai stresses the impact that engineers have on society and how engineering principles and ethics can be applied to life. He is a role model for any profession,” wrote one.2
Colleagues and students alike say Desai has a genuine passion for student learning and mentorship.
“Dr. Desai’s targeted and sustained mentoring of African American students via different programs has led to a steady pipeline of minority engineers who have gone on to careers in industry, academia and national laboratories,” says Dr. Tonya Smith-Jackson, Chair of A&T’s Industrial and Systems Engineering Department.
Desai collaborates with both high-tech companies and the public. His outreach extends beyond the university to explain nano-biotechnology to K-12 students and the public via science shows, demonstrations and podcasts for the Natural Science Center of Greensboro.3
It’s that kind of passion that earned Desai a 2016 Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of North Carolina Board of Governors.4
1 http://www.businessnc.com/research-nc/north-carolina-a-t-state-university/
2 https://www.northcarolina.edu/board-governors-awards/teaching-awards-2016
3Ibid.
4Ibid.
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