Edward Snell named chair of materials design and innovation
Edward Snell will become the department's second chair.
By Marcene Robinson
Published October 6, 2025
Edward Snell, professor, has been named chair of the Department of Materials Design and Innovation in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He assumes the role on Jan. 1, 2026.
Snell succeeds Krishna Rajan, who has served as the department’s inaugural chair since 2015. Rajan will return to a faculty role.
“I look forward to the continued growth of the Department of Materials Design and Innovation under Professor Snell’s leadership. He brings both an unwavering commitment to excellence and a bold vision that will drive the department forward,” said Kemper Lewis, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
“I also extend my gratitude to Professor Rajan for his outstanding leadership,” Lewis said. “He was truly the architect of this department, playing a defining role in its creation and in its emergence as one of the preeminent materials programs in the country. His legacy is firmly embedded in the department’s foundation and will continue to guide its future.”
Snell is an internationally recognized biophysicist whose research focuses on X-ray interactions with materials, particularly in the biological sciences. His projects span improving high-throughput crystallization methods, accurately interpreting metalloprotein structures, and exploring electron transport in biological systems.
He served as CEO and president of UB’s Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute for nearly a decade and continued as its chief scientific officer until the institute’s merger with UB in January 2025.
He was the director of BioXFEL, a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center that secured more than $47 million in funding to advance the biological applications of X-ray free-electron lasers. Under his leadership, the center produced nearly 1,000 publications and deposited more than 1,350 structural models in the Protein Data Bank.
Snell is a fellow of the American Crystallographic Association, and he was named to Buffalo Business First’s Power 250 list of Western New York’s most influential people from 2015 to 2024. Prior to joining UB, he was a staff scientist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center Biophysics Laboratory, where he conducted experiments that were flown on the space shuttle, Mir, and the International Space Station.
He earned his PhD in synchrotron crystallography from the University of Manchester and his bachelor’s degree in applied physics from Liverpool John Moores University.
“Professor Rajan’s leadership established the Department of Materials Design and Innovation as a national model for reimagining materials science and engineering, embedding data science, statistics, mathematics, and other non-traditional alliances into the field while sustaining the discipline’s foundational strengths,” said Snell.
“This integrative vision positions the department at the forefront of addressing challenges in advanced manufacturing, health, environment, energy, and technology. I am honored to continue that trajectory and to guide the Department of Materials Design and Innovation into new frontiers of innovation.”
A decade of leadership
Krishna Rajan, SUNY Distinguished Professor and SUNY Empire Innovation Professor, concludes a decade of service as chair of the Department of Materials Design and Innovation.
As the inaugural Erich Bloch Chair, Rajan built the first academic department in the United States dedicated to AI-driven materials discovery and design. The department embeds statistics, computer science, and machine learning into every aspect of materials education and research.
Under his leadership, the Department of Materials Design and Innovation has grown to nearly 20 faculty, and it has graduated nearly 40 PhD and 80 master’s students, as well as its first undergraduate class in 2024. Alumni now hold positions at national laboratories, corporate research and development centers, and start-up companies. Faculty have also secured funding through numerous government agencies and industry partners, establishing the department as one of UB’s top performers in research expenditures.
“Starting this department from scratch was the ultimate opportunity. It’s not often in academia that you get to build something entirely new,” said Rajan. “I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished, and of the community we’ve created filled with brilliant faculty, dedicated staff, and talented students. I’m so grateful to have been part of that journey.”
Rajan is an internationally renowned materials scientist and pioneer of materials informatics—a field he helped establish—that integrates information science, data-driven discovery, and physics-based modeling to accelerate the design and deployment of new materials. His groundbreaking research has advanced applications ranging from aerospace alloys and energy systems to drug delivery and high-performance sensors.
He directs both the Center for Accelerated Innovation through Materials and the Collaboratory for a Regenerative Economy. He is also co-founder of materialsIN, a start-up that advances AI-driven materials informatics tools for industry.
Rajan is a fellow of ASM International, has published nearly 400 journal articles and 17 books and edited volumes, delivered over 350 invited presentations, and received numerous international awards, including the Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He holds a joint appointment as chief scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Energy Processes and Materials Division
Rajan earned a doctorate in materials science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in metallurgy and materials science from the University of Toronto.
