Paulette Clancy previously directed the Cornell Institute for Computational Science and Engineering. She served two terms as the William C. Hooey Director of the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University from 2002-January 2010. She was the first female Director of the School and the first woman to Chair an Engineering department in the College of Engineering at Cornell. A native of London, England, she graduated with First Class Honors from London University and received a D. Phil in Chemistry from Oxford University in Physical Chemistry. After post-doctoral research at Cornell and at London University, she joined the faculty at Cornell in 1987.
Her research laboratory is one of the leading groups in the country studying atomic- and molecular-scale modeling of semiconductor materials. Her team focuses on prediction and insight regarding the link between material design and properties, allowing them to suggest processing conditions and tailored materials to fulfill a desired set of constraints. Her primary current foci are novel materials for (a) photovoltaic applications for solar cells and (b) laser annealing of semiconductors and porous low-k materials.
She also played an active role as an advocate for increased representation of women among physical scientists and engineers. She was the founding Chair of the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) faculty in the College of Engineering at Cornell and an original co-writer of what became the Cornell policy for family leave. In 2011, she was awarded the AIChE National Women's Initiatives Mentoring Award. In 2003 and 2011, she won the James M. and Marsha D. Mc Cormick award for excellence in undergraduate advising; in 2005 the Alice Cook award for services to promoting women in science at Cornell. In 2007, she won the Zellman Warhaft award for the promotion of diversity in the College of Engineering. In 2008, she won Cornell's highest award for mentoring, the Kendall Carpenter award. In 2009, she was the inaugural NSF Advance Lecturer at Iowa State University.
This includes Molecular Simulation studies of semiconductor materials covering a broad range from traditional Si and Si-rich materials, to organic electronics (e.g., pentacene, C60, thiophenes, etc), to organic/inorganic hybrids (especially ligand-capped nanocrystal superlattices). Complementary algorithm development in stochastic simulations, Kinetic Monte Carlo (esp. off-lattice). Virtually unique focus on studies of materials processing and thin film growth.
