Mary Galvin

Mary Galvin is the William K. Warren Foundation Dean of the College of Science at the University of Notre Dame. As dean, Galvin leads more than 550 faculty, staff, and postdoctoral researchers in the college, which is home to more than 1750 undergraduate and 700 graduate students.

She received MS and ScD degrees in polymer science from the Materials Science Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After graduating from MIT, Galvin joined Bell Laboratories, where she served for 14 years, becoming a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff. In 1998, Galvin joined the University of Delaware to help establish a new Department of Materials Science and Engineering and became a Distinguished Professor of Materials Science. At both Bell Labs and the University of Delaware, Galvin established research programs on the structure and property relationships that govern the performance of organic materials in light-emitting diodes (LEDs), photovoltaic cells, and thin film transistors. She has co-authored many publications in this area as well as on inorganic/organic nanocomposites and polymer blends. She has given numerous invited talks at national and international meetings and holds five U.S. patents.

In 2005, Galvin joined Air Products and Chemicals Inc., serving as technical lead for the development of new electroactive organic products and as a member of the Technology Leadership Team.

Following her time at Air Products, she worked as a program officer in the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation (NSF). In 2013 she became the Director for the Division of Materials Research at NSF, where she managed a $307 million budget and was responsible for setting scientific priorities for materials science and condensed matter physics. In this role she was instrumental in establishing the Materials Genome Initiative at NSF and the Materials Innovation Platforms Program. Galvin is a fellow in the American Physical Society, was elected to the board of directors of the Materials Research Society, and has served on National Research Council panels including the Board of Chemical Science and Technology.