Emily A. Carter

Emily A. Carter is the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, and Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, at UCLA. As a chief academic and operating officer, she works with the Chancellor and her leadership team to guide strategic planning and policy development, defines budgetary and advancement priorities, and support strategic initiatives across campus and beyond. Dr. Carter began her academic career at UCLA in 1988, rising through the chemistry and biochemistry faculty ranks before moving to Princeton University in 2004, where she spent the next 15 years jointly appointed in mechanical and aerospace engineering and in applied and computational mathematics. During her first stint at UCLA, she helped launch two institutes that still exist today: the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics and the California NanoSystems Institute. While at Princeton, she held the Arthur W. Marks ’19 and the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professorships. After an international search, she was selected to be the Founding Director of Princeton’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. She oversaw the construction of its award-winning building and state-of-the-art facilities, the development of novel educational and research programs, and the hiring of its faculty and staff. She then served as Dean of Engineering and Applied Science from 2016-19, where she spearheaded major research, education, outreach, and diversity initiatives. Upon her departure, she became Princeton’s first Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment, Emeritus, and Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Applied and Computational Mathematics, Emeritus. Dr. Carter maintains a very active research presence, developing and applying quantum mechanical simulation techniques to enable the discovery and design of molecules and materials for sustainable energy. Her research group is currently supported by multiple grants from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.

The author of over 400 publications, Carter has delivered over 550 invited and plenary lectures worldwide and has served on advisory boards spanning a wide range of disciplines. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including election to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, and the National Academy of Engineering. She broke the glass ceiling on several major prizes, including the 2017 Irving Langmuir Prize in Chemical Physics from the American Physical Society and the 2018 Award in Theoretical Chemistry from the American Chemical Society. Carter earned a B.S. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1982 (graduating Phi Beta Kappa) and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Caltech in 1987, followed by a brief postdoc at the University of Colorado, Boulder.