Vice President For Research
Benjamin S. Hsiao, PhD
Welcome to the Stony Brook Research Office!
The Vice President for Research reports to the President and is the chief research officer for Stony Brook University, responsible for the campus-wide advancement of the University’s research mission.
As the Vice President for Research, I am responsible for promoting excellence in scholarship and research activities such as encouraging investment in research infrastructure, facilitating creative and collaborative research opportunities, increasing external funding from major public and private funding sources, advancing translational research for successful technology transfer and economic development, and ensuring compliance with all applicable laws and regulations related to the responsible conduct of research.
Together with the Stony Brook Research Office, I will assist both the Provost and Senior Vice President for Health Sciences to increase joint research endeavors within the campus as well as between the University, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Working closely with the Vice President for Economic Development, we will be instrumental in promoting Accelerate Long Island, a groundbreaking initiative between the region’s top research institutions, the Long Island Association and the Town of Brookhaven, to create a research corridor or “innovation alley” that promotes innovation, collaboration and entrepreneurship in fostering growth of a high-tech economy to create new jobs and businesses on Long Island.
I look forward to working with faculty, staff, the Administration and our colleagues at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to promote research here at Stony Brook.
Benjamin S. Hsiao Biography
Benjamin (Ben) S. Hsiao was born in Taiwan and received his BS degree in Chemical Engineering from National Taiwan University in 1980. Two years later, he came to the U.S. for graduate studies, receiving his PhD degree in Materials Science at the University of Connecticut and his post-doctorate training in Chemistry and Polymer Science & Engineering at the University of Massachusetts. He later joined the E.I. DuPont Company as a staff scientist in the Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware, and spent eight years in research and development before joining the Chemistry Department at Stony Brook as an Assistant Professor in 1997. He became a Full Professor in 2002, and Chair of the Chemistry Department in 2007. Under his leadership, Chemistry at Stony Brook has been identified as one of the top departments in the nation, and designated a National Landmark for the invention of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) by the American Chemical Society.
Ben has extensive research experience in the areas of structure, property and functionality relationships in polymers. In the past 15 years, Ben was the spokesperson for the X27C Beamline in National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), the first synchrotron facility in the United States dedicated to polymer research. Ben was also the Co-Director for the Joint Photon Sciences Institute (JPSI) between BNL and Stony Brook, which serves as a gateway for NSLS and NSLS-II to promote and sustain synchrotron technique innovation and research knowledge transfer to the user communities and to other synchrotron facilities in the United States and throughout the world. Currently, Ben’s research interests are focused on the use of nanostructured polymers for medical, environmental and energy applications. Based on his recent work on nanofiber technology, he and his colleague Benjamin Chu have developed a new class of membranes for water purification as well as for biomedical applications, such as anti-adhesion and tissue engineering.
In 2011, Ben was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his contributions to the fields of polymer sciences, water purification, chemical research and education. He is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society (2002), a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2011), and a recipient of the Chang-Jiang Professorship from the Education Ministry of China (2008). He has published more than 365 peer-reviewed scientific papers, 37 reviews and chapters in books and encyclopedias, 220 conference proceedings, 14 issued and 18 pending patents and has edited two books. According to the ISI Web of Science, the total citations of his publications are now over 13,000 times. Ben has given more than 230 invited lectures in universities, governmental and industrial research institutes and more than 445 presentations in national and international scientific meetings.
Ben was appointed as the Vice President for Research and Chief Research Officer at Stony Brook University on May 1, 2012. In this position, he is responsible for the campus-wide advancement of Stony Brook's research mission through strategic planning and oversees the Research Foundation, supervises all Stony Brook University research administration activities and functions, and is the primary advocate for the University's research enterprise on a state, national and international level.
