Seeing a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is a rare event – like seeing a Hall of Famer at a local game. But at the College of Chemistry’s Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE) Department, it’s more like an All-Star Game: nearly every second or third senior professor you encounter has reached the pinnacle of the profession.
In early 2026, Nitash Balsara was elected to the NAE, bringing the total count of full professors and research-active professors of the graduate school that have been elected to 6 out of 14. That is 42.9%--an exceptionally high concentration of NAE members and a remarkable accomplishment for the department, not to mention one of the highest densities for any single department in the world.
In late March, Balsara was recognized by his colleagues in a small reception. His recent induction recognized his pioneering work in polymer electrolytes for lithium batteries and the thermodynamics of polymer blends.
“I still think of you as this titan in polymer physics and polymer chemistry,” said Bryan McCloskey, Department Chair. “As your career has grown, I see, even more so now, the sheer impact you’ve had on that field. Every paper I read on polymer electrolytes has 6, 8, 10 citations to [your] work. There is no way to do work in polymer electrolytes and ignore the work from Nitash. He has made an enormous mark on that field.”
Prior to Balsara’s recognition, David Schaffer was elected into the NAE for his application of engineering principles to molecular and cellular engineering, specifically in the development of gene therapy vectors. Other distinguished NAE members in the College’s CBE department include Alexis Bell, recognized for heterogeneous catalysis and spectroscopic characterization; Clayton J. Radke, for colloid and interfacial science; Jay D. Keasling, for synthetic biology and metabolic engineering; and Douglas Clark, Dean Emeritus and a Chancellor’s Professor within the CBE department who was recognized for his advances in biocatalyst and bioreaction engineering for drug discovery, drug screening, and bioprocessing.