Reeja Jayan named faculty director of the Center for Faculty Success

Reeja Jayan has been named the faculty director of the Center for Faculty Success in the College of Engineering.

Jayan will direct the relaunch of the center to empower faculty across all of our global engagements to be successful at each stage of their careers—including junior, mid-career, and senior faculty.

Together with Katie Walsh, who was recently hired as the center’s managing director, Jayan will be responsible for professional development, training, and leadership opportunities and oversee programs to recognize and celebrate faculty success. She will work closely with Lisa Porter, associate dean for faculty and graduate affairs (in whose office the center resides), leaders of the college departments and institutes, the associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the vice provost for faculty to ensure faculty members are equitably supported. She will also collaborate with the associate dean for research and the Engineering Research Accelerator to support faculty members’ approaches to planning and managing research.

Jayan, who is currently an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, will be promoted to professor on July 1. She holds courtesy appointments in Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering. Her research, which lies at the intersection of electromagnetics and materials science, targets sustainable processing of ceramic materials for energy storage and sensing applications.

She received Carnegie Mellon’s Teaching Innovation Award this spring based on her use of innovative game-based learning strategies in the classroom, and she has received numerous other awards for her research, including an NSF Career Award, the Young Investigator Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and Pittsburgh Magazine’s 40 Under 40 Award.