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Goyal named SUNY Distinguished Professor
Amit Goyal, a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor and founding director of UB’s RENEW Institute, was named a SUNY Distinguished Professor.
by UB Now staff
Published April 9, 2020
Amit Goyal was one of five UB faculty members to be named a SUNY Distinguished Professor, the highest faculty rank in the SUNY system.
The rank of distinguished professor is an order above full professorship and has three co-equal designations: distinguished professor, distinguished service professor and distinguished teaching professor.
According to SUNY, “this distinction is attained through significant contributions to the research literature or through artistic performance or achievement in the case of the arts. The candidate’s work must be of such character that the individual’s presence will tend to elevate the standards of scholarship of colleagues both within and beyond these persons’ academic fields.”
“UB is tremendously proud that five of our most distinguished faculty members have been appointed to SUNY’s highest rank,” said A. Scott Weber, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “This distinction recognizes that UB faculty are among the best in the world and have a transformative impact through their sustained research and scholarship contributions.”
An internationally recognized materials scientist, Goyal is a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor and founding director of UB’s RENEW Institute. In 2018, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for groundbreaking scientific advances and technological innovations enabling the worldwide commercialization of high-temperature superconductors. He is also a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, with 87 issued patents and additional patents pending.
Goyal joined UB in 2015 to direct RENEW, an institute that harnesses the expertise of more than 100 faculty in seven UB schools and colleges to explore solutions to globally pressing energy and environmental problems, as well as the social and economic issues connecting them. His leadership has placed UB at the forefront of efforts to reduce water and air pollution, and find innovative, clean ways to produce, transmit and store energy.
In 2019, he was awarded the UB President’s Medal that recognizes “outstanding scholarly or artistic achievements, humanitarian acts, contributions of time or treasure, exemplary leadership or any other major contribution to the development of the University at Buffalo and the quality of life in the UB community.”
The author or co-author of more than 350 technical publications and co-editor of six books, Goyal was ranked by Thompson-Reuters’ Essential Science Indicators as the most cited author worldwide in the field of high-temperature superconductivity from 1999-2009. He is a fellow of eight professional societies: the American Association for Advancement of Science, the Materials Research Society, the American Physical Society, the World Innovation Foundation, the American Society of Metals, the Institute of Physics, the American Ceramic Society and the World Technology Network. He serves on several scientific advisory boards and on several National Academy review panels.
In addition, M. Laura Feltri, Jo Freudenheim, Elad Levy and Stephen Tiffany were appointed to the distinguished professor ranks by the SUNY Board of Trustees.