Rodrigo Martinez-Duarte is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, a Faculty member in the Eukaryotic Pathogens Innovation Center (EPIC), and Faculty Scholar in the School of Health Research at Clemson University (CU) in the US. He currently the Faculty Advisor for the CU chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE).

His Multiscale Manufacturing Laboratory pursues research with application in healthcare and advanced manufacturing. Rodrigo is known as the pioneer of carbon-electrode Dielectrophoresis (carbonDEP), a technique for bioparticle manipulation using carbon electrodes and microfluidics devices with application to diagnostics and therapeutics. He is also known for advancing the use of renewable materials and non-traditional techniques such as origami and robocasting to manufacture shaped geometries that serve as precursors to architected carbon and carbide structures towards use for example in structural energy components and structural catalysts. His lab is also innovating ways to use microbial factories as nanoweavers of biofibers. A recurrent theme in his lab is assessing the effect of processing on the properties of materials and structures at multiple length scales, towards tailoring their performance for a targeted application. He is an advocate for undergraduate research, hosting multiple Creative Inquiry teams as well as individual researchers within the frameworks of Eureka! (CU Honors College), SPRI, and NSF REU, many of which have become authors and inventors.

At Clemson University he teaches Manufacturing Processes and their Application as well as the Fundamentals of Micro/nanofabrication, a course he introduced to the university curricula. He also serves as an advisor to capstone design courses and co-leads an international capstone design working with multinational industry and universities in Mexico. His awarded pedagogical approach emphasizes teamwork, global preparedness, critical thinking, and project-based learning that emphasizes sustainability. In collaboration with multiple collagues in CU, he helped develop the Technical German minor, one of the first programs of its kind in the US.

Rodrigo benefits from an interdisciplinary and international background that started in Mexico (BS Electrical Engineering, Tecnologico de Monterrey) and continued in the US (MS, PhD, University of California, Irvine) and Switzerland (Postdoc, EPFL, Microtechnology) before arriving in Clemson. Along this journey, he has been a visiting scholar in Spain (Universitat de Barcelona, Faculty of Physics), India (IIT Kanpur, Department of Chemical Engineering), South Korea (UNIST, School of Nanobioscience & Chemical Engineering), and Sweden (Chalmers Microtechnology and Nanoscience).

He has an extensive track record of service and leadership to different constituencies. He is the Past President of the AES Electrophoresis Society (2018-2020); an elected founding member of Clemson University’s Commission on Latino Affairs and a Past Chair (2021-2022); Past Chair of the Mechanical Engineering International (2016-2022) and Inclusive Excellence (2021-2024) Committees; Chair of the committee organizing the Day of the Dead Celebration at Clemson; Chair of the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences (CECAS) Committee on Global Engagement (2018-present); Guest Editor for multiple journals; Committee member or reviewer in multiple dissertation committees around the world; and an active Reviewer for leading journals and funding agencies in his field. He is or has chaired several sessions and international meetings on Carbon and/or Electrokinetics within the Dielectrophoresis Conference, Electrochemical Society, Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers, the AES Electrophoresis Society, and SciX.

Awards include the Public Impact fellowship at UC Irvine in 2010; in 2019 both Junior Faculty Eastman Award for Excellence in Mechanical Engineering, and the Esin Gulari Leadership and Service Award in Engineering at Clemson; in 2021, the Impact Award from the Hispanic Latinx Heritage Month; in 2022, the Murray Stokely Award for Excellence in Teaching at CU; and in 2023, the Provost Senior Tenured Outstanding Teaching Award and the Phil Prince Innovation in Teaching Award at CU (highest teaching awards in CU). Also in 2023, the Distinguished Service Award from the AES Electrophoresis Society due to his dedicated service to the society.

Links

Curriculum Vitae
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Clemson University
Clemson University Department of Mechanical Engineering