Kaushik Balakrishnan is the Inaugural Director for Research Development and Advancement. At The College, Kaushik will assist the leadership, faculty and staff across the 19 academic units with all things research.
He has a Ph.D. (2008) in Chemistry from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and did his postdoctoral research advancing nanomaterials for energy and sensing applications at the Materials Science Department at Rice University. He subsequently joined the University of Arizona's College of Optical Sciences as an Assistant Research Professor in January of 2012. From January 2016 to June 2017, he was a Program Manager, Research at Arizona State University where he managed the portfolio’s in Transportation, Materials Science, and Sustainability. As a Research Development and Corporate Engagement Associate (2017-2021) at the University of Arizona, he assisted with project management and crafting complex proposals to federal agencies, industry, and foundations. He also has an MBA (2020) from the Eller College of Management and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) . He has also been a PI, Co-I and senior personnel on several federal and industry sponsored research. He has one patent, two book chapters, and more than 30 peer reviewed journal articles and communications that have been cited over 5000 times.