Mridul Gautam, Ph.D.

Vice President for Research and Innovation
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
University of Nevada, Reno

President, Nevada Research and Innovation Corporation

Mridul Gautam

Mridul Gautam is an experienced administrator and a highly accomplished researcher and educator with more than 36 years of experience in top ranked higher education institutions in the country. As Vice President for Research and Innovation and a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno, Dr. Gautam leads the articulation and implementation of a shared vision for world-class research, creative and scholarly works, discovery, innovation and commercialization, and the corresponding commitment to grow the institution’s capacity as a high-impact land-grant university and an economic cornerstone for Nevada. As the Founding President of the Nevada Research and Innovation Corporation, and the architect of the Nevada Center for Applied Research and the University of Nevada, Reno Innevation Center, he has helped spark and build a dynamic research-based innovation ecosystem in northern Nevada. As a member of the University’s President’s Leadership Team and Budget Advisory Committee, Dr. Gautam advises on major policy issues and addresses state and national issues of compelling interest to the University community.

His service as a senior leader contributes to a dynamic time for the University as it continues to achieve record levels of research productivity, engagement, faculty achievement, undergraduate and graduate enrollment, retention, and graduation. As he leads Research & Innovation, Dr. Gautam’s collaborative nature has encouraged university-wide stakeholders to maintain a steady focus on supporting the University’s commitment to ensuring access and affordability, leading-edge student experience, engagement and closing the achievement gap. Given his own heritage and background, Dr. Gautam’s career has been focused on ensuring access and success of all students and faculty regardless of their background.

His leadership style is undergirded by his core values of integrity, pursuit of excellence, inclusiveness, collaboration, and accountability, and his career is best characterized by the teams he has built. A successful strategist with considerable financial acumen and a long-standing commitment to transparent budgeting practices, he has ensured sustained growth and excellence at the institution.

Through his responsive, persistent and transparent communications with all stakeholders he has supercharged the intimate relationship between a land-grant research university-based R&D and its role in improving people’s lives. As a leader in Nevada’s higher education system, he has demonstrated creative energy and encouraged a larger holistic view that connects the University’s faculty members, staff, students, and organizations with their communities. Working with the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) leadership, thought leaders in the sciences, engineering and humanities, community leaders, policy makers, and captains of industry, he has demonstrated his commitment to aligning Nevada’s research universities, government and industry with statewide economic goals, and ensuring economic resiliency in a way that encourages and sustains inclusive, healthy, and vibrant communities. Dr. Gautam has been an integral leader in the development and promotion of the University’s regional and state-wide research and innovation ecosystem that fosters the growth of jobs in the state; thus, encouraging retention of our graduates within the state.

He guides the Research & Innovation (R&I) division by enabling the professional careers and competitiveness of faculty and supporting the institution’s capacity as an R1 doctoral university with very high research activity, as classified by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. In January 2020, the University achieved the Carnegie Community Engaged University classification. In 2019, two years ahead of schedule, the University achieved almost all goals and metrics for research, discovery, innovation and infrastructure that were laid out in the University's Strategic Plan 2015-2021. The credit goes to the inspired effort on part of all stakeholders – internal and external – who supported and helped build new and bold partnerships, and continually responded and adapted to the dynamic changes taking place in our current environment. Today, research expenditures have more than doubled to $182 million, and the number of postdocs and research faculty has also more than doubled since the day Dr. Gautam joined the University of Nevada, Reno in late 2013. At his previous institution, West Virginia University (WVU), he helped lay the foundation and the structure that led to its achievement of the Carnegie R1 classification after he moved to Nevada.

Dr. Gautam has been a life-long champion of the promise and mission of land-grant research universities. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in engineering from a land-grant research institution in India, received his doctorate from a land-grant research university in West Virginia, and has worked for more than 36 years in land-grant research universities. He has strived to ensure that organizations he worked for were focused on the goal of making people’s lives better in the highest traditions of American land-grant institutions of higher education.

He has built the trust with faculty, staff and students who view him as somebody who sees the best in them. Under his leadership, Research & Innovation provides high quality services and infrastructure to enable faculty, students and staff to excel in their research, scholarly and creative endeavors and to advance innovation and commercialization. The division helps build interdisciplinary collaborations, assists researchers in obtaining and managing extramural funding, and maintains a safe, healthy and ethical environment in which to conduct nationally competitive research. He is a voracious advocate and champion of the University’s faculty, student body and staff, and has instituted awards and recognitions to celebrate their achievements and the University’s values. As an administrator he has strived to build leaders among the faculty by facilitating and encouraging them to assume direct responsibilities for programmatic matters that were typically handled by the administration. He established the Research Communications office to build an effective, audience-directed communication infrastructure to advance and amplify strategically important successes of the University community. Dr. Gautam is committed to facilitating connections with industry and fostering regional entrepreneurship and collaboration through an innovative ecosystem, anchored by the Nevada Center for Applied Research and the University of Nevada, Reno Innevation Center. Dr. Gautam serves as the founding President of the recently established Nevada Research and Innovation Corporation. At WVU, he served as Associate Vice President for Research as well as the Vice President for the WVU Research Corporation.

Dr. Gautam is Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. As a Chair of the EPSCoR/IDeA Coalition Board, he is a respected leadership voice that represents over 28 EPSCoR/IDeA states and territories in our nation’s capital. He serves on several additional national committees and boards of directors including Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities' (APLU) Commission on Economic and Community Engagement, APLU Council on Research, the Desert Research Institute Research Park, and he is a member of the National Academies’ Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable. In the recent past, he had served on the APLU Research Task Force on Laboratory Safety, and the US EPA Mobile Sources Technology Review Subcommittee.

Dr. Gautam is an internationally recognized researcher and expert in the area of heavy-duty mobile source exhaust emissions, in-use emissions analysis, aerosol sampling, and particulate matter measurement, characterization, and control. He has more than 36 years of experience in initiating and managing large interdisciplinary and multi-institutional programs and has served as a principal investigator and/or co-principal investigator on over $95 million in funded research. Currently, he serves as the Principal Investigator on the NSF Regional Innovation Engines Type 1 Award, and the Nevada Knowledge Fund supported Nevada Center for Applied Research program. Dr. Gautam has published more than 400 technical articles including refereed journal articles, symposia/published proceedings and published abstracts of papers presented at professional meetings. In addition to having a licensing agreement to his credit, he is a recipient of the Outstanding Aerosol Paper Award through the American Industrial Hygiene Association and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists, the Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award through the Society of Automotive Engineers, and multiple Outstanding Researcher of the Year awards at WVU.

Education

Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering – West Virginia University, 1989
M.Tech., Mechanical Engineering – Indian Institute of Technology, 1984
B.Tech., Mechanical Engineering – G.B. Pant University, 1982

Leadership Positions

(Present and past)

University of Nevada, Reno
- Vice President for Research and Innovation
- Budget Advisory Committee – An eight-member group led by the President. The committee made strategic and budgetary decisions for the University.
- Member, President’s Leadership Team
Nevada Research and Innovation Corporation
- Founding President
West Virginia University
- Associate Vice President for Research
- Vice President, WVU Research Corporation
Coalition of EPSCoR/IDeA States
- Chair, Board of Directors
Association of Public and Land-grant Universities
- Member, Executive Committee, Commission on Economic and Community Engagement (CECE)
- Member, Executive Committee, Council on Research (CoR)
- Member, Laboratory Safety Taskforce
University Economic Development Association
- Member, Board of Directors
Desert Research Institute Research Park Foundation
- Member, Board of Directors
Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems
- Member, Board of Directors
Sierra Nevada University
- Member, Board of Trustees (BoT), and Member, BoT Academic Affairs Committee
US EPA Clean Air Act Mobile Sources Technology Review Subcommittee
- Member
Battleborn Fund
- Member, Investment Advisory Committee
Manufacture Nevada; formerly Nevada Industry Excellence
- Member, Advisory Committee

Notable Accomplishments

Summary

Led the University’s efforts to attain Carnegie R1 Classification in 2018 and again in 2021
As the Chair, Board of Directors of the EPSCoR/IDeA Coalition, successfully advocated for 20% of NSF budget, amongst several other allocations, to EPSCoR jurisdictions through the CHIPS and Science Act
The University received, in the same year, the EDA Tech Hubs award, and the NSF Regional Innovation Engines Development award
Established the University of Nevada, Innevation Center (IC)
Established the Nevada Center for Applied Research (NCAR)
- Together IC and NCAR serve as cornerstones of a dynamic regional innovation ecosystem. The two units have incubated companies that have raised $319 million in venture capital in the past five years, and created more than 800 new jobs
Established the University of Nevada, Reno K-12 Robotics Center in partnership with Tesla in a newly acquired historical building built in 1932
Founded the Nevada Research and Innovation Corporation, a 501(c )3 charitable organization for commercializing University’s intellectual property
Established the Pack Research Experience Program (PREP) for freshman with focus on first generation, low-income and BIPOC students
Established the High-Performance Computing facility
Resurrected the University’s 2,600-acre Whittle Forest and Wildlife Area.
Established the Little Valley Research Station facility on a newly acquired 38-acre property
Established the USGS Cooperative Research Unit at the University
Established the Woodland Restoration Institute at the University
Total funding increased to $287 million in FY23 from $111.6 in FY13
Total R&D Expenditures increased to $189 million in FY23 from $87 million in FY13

Research

University of Nevada, Reno has been designated as R1: Doctoral University – Very high research activity in 2021 and 2018 by the Carnegie Classification for Institutions of Higher Education
University received the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement in 2020
Recently, the University was awarded the NSF Regional Innovation Engines Type-1 Development award, and the Tech Hubs award
University’s total research expenditures in FY23 increased 117 percent since 2013, from $87 million to an all-time high of $189 million with 634 faculty members
University’s per capita R&D expenditures are amongst the top 65 for public universities in the country; increased from $163,000/faculty in FY17 to $299,000/faculty in FY23
Achieved, in FY19 – two years ahead of schedule, every major metric of Theme 2: Discovery in the University’s 2015-2021 Strategic Plan
Established several multi-disciplinary centers and institutes, in collaboration with faculty and with approvals from the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE)
- Nevada Water Innovation Institute
- Global Water Center
- Neurosciences Institute
- The Hitchcock Center for Chemical Ecology
- Cybersecurity Center
- Ozmen Institute for Global Studies
- University of Nevada, Reno Innevation Center
- Center for Drug Use, Equity and Public Policy
Established the Nevada Center for Applied Research - An applied research and development technology center that serves to enhance the global competitiveness of Nevada industry by leveraging the physical assets and intellectual expertise at the University of Nevada, Reno
Established the USGS-funded Cooperative Research Center at the University
Initiating the establishment of a USGS-funded Woodland Restoration Institute at the University
Established Intelligent Mobility, a state-wide research, development and demonstration program
Established Dimensions, liberal arts and journalism interdisciplinary research and creative activity grants initiative
Established three new Core Laboratories – Advanced Imaging Core Facility for high spatial and temporal resolution imaging, the High-Performance Computing Facility, the 2,600-acre Whittell Forest and Wild Life Area with a recently acquired 38-acre Research Station (work-in-progress). Restructured and expanded the Bioinformatics, Genomics and Proteomics Core Laboratories; all with full-time directors
Established Research & Proposal Development Services (RPDS) to support faculty in developing larger multi- disciplinary and/or multi-institutional proposals
Programs under his leadership have received stellar reviews by regulatory bodies; successive accreditations by accreditation agencies

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Established a new 501(c)3 Nevada Research and Innovation Corporation and serves as the founding President of the corporation
Established the Nevada Center for Applied Research (NCAR), a stand-alone R&D technology center focused on enhancing Nevada’s global competitiveness by aligning industry’s needs with University’s goals
Established the University of Nevada, Reno Innevation Center
Expanded the Innevation Center building footprint by leasing a building from the City of Reno – The Southside Studio
As cornerstones of a dynamic regional innovation ecosystem, NCAR and the Innevation Center have engaged with more than 708 companies, agencies and organizations. Startups incubated in the ecosystem have raised more than $319 million in the past five years, created more than 800 new jobs and attracted more than $234 million in grants, contracts, and gifts

Undergraduate and Graduate Education

The University is following a new strategic plan, Wolf Pack Rising, developed in 2022 and aggressive in each dimension of its mission. Collectively, record levels of undergraduate and graduate enrollment, retention, graduation and diversity are being achieved. Student-to-faculty ratio is 18:1 – the median for land grant universities.
Conceptualized and supported, along with the University President, the Nevada DRIVE (Doctoral Research in Innovation, Vision and Excellence) program to fund 20 research assistantships per year for doctoral students
Collaborated with the Dean of Graduate School to enhance recruitment, enrollment and graduation rates of graduate students. Largest increases were in Black/African American, Multiethnic and Hispanic/Latino graduate students – 28%, 22% and 19%, respectively.
Supported efforts to add 141 new GTA positions between 2014 and 2018, and the largest number of doctoral degrees were conferred in FY23 – 189; up from 118 in FY18
Through pre-college and college programs, undergraduate research programs, a student-to- academic advisor ratio of 350:1, the University’s focus is on teaching and learning, student access, success and closing the achievement gap for first-generation and underserved students.

Undergraduate Research

Funding for undergraduate research, scholarship and creative activities, in all areas of study, increased almost six-fold in the past five years
Wolf Pack Discoveries, a highly successful research symposium celebrates student researchers’ curricular and co-curricular achievements
A new and a highly successful Pack Research Experience Program (PREP) was designed and implemented to directly benefit underrepresented students with an academic standing of freshman or sophomore to support engagement in research very early in their college career
The Nevada State Undergraduate Research Journal was started in 2014

Diversity, Inclusion and Equity

Pack Research Experience Program (PREP): A research award directly benefiting historically underrepresented and first-generation students with an academic standing of freshman or sophomore. PREP awards help students develop skills, knowledge, and experience to apply for other opportunities, such as the McNair Scholars Program, and graduate school, with the goal of diversifying the professoriate.
Nevada Tribal Academy of Health and Science: A NIH-INBRE funded program designed to assist Native Americans succeed in science and health occupations through mentorship and guidance. The Academy provides culturally relevant support starting as early as high school.
Partnership with Upward Bound: A program exploring STEAM career opportunities and helping student interns become “makers” in the InNEVation Center’s Makerspace.

Fundraising

Raised $8.3 million in philanthropic funds to establish world class core laboratories at the University of Nevada, Reno – Proteomics, Genomics, Advanced Imaging, High Performance Computing facility, the University of Nevada, Reno Innevation Center, and support equipment and renovation of laboratories to enhance the research infrastructure
Secured an in-kind donation with a booked value of $75 million – the largest ever in-kind gift to WVU
Worked with the WVU Provost’s office to define the research focus areas for the $70 million WV Research Trust Fund, which was established by the state Legislature

Federal Relations

Served as the point person for the University of Nevada, Reno on federal relations
Engaged in federal initiatives resulting in Department of Interior Appropriations of $12 million for a building on a university’s campus that was contaminated with radium
Facilitated Department of Interior Appropriations in the amount of $5.6 million to help establish a Cooperative Research Unit at the University of Nevada, Reno, and potentially at three other institutions
Facilitated Department of Interior Appropriations to establish a Woodland Restoration Institute at the University of Nevada, Reno
Facilitated the passage of the Great Basin Climate Adaptation Science Center in the House Appropriations Bill, 2023. The Conference has yet to take place.
Engaged in the Department of Energy Appropriations of $1 million for the soil-box project at the University of Nevada, Reno
At WVU, worked with the VP Research, and Director of Federal Research Relations to seek federally directed funding for major, new, and existing research initiatives. Provided confidential advice to the VP of Research on the content of the campus briefing book for the University President and Congressional delegation.
Led the effort to direct Department of Defense appropriations to WVU for US ARDEC and Army Research Laboratory projects, for a total of $9.8 million
Testified on behalf of the Coalition of EPSCoR/IDeA States in front of the House Appropriations Committee - Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Subcommittee, April 14, 2010

Community Engagement

Established the K-12 Robotics Center in the Southside Studio with funding in excess of $500,00 from Tesla. Assumed the responsibility of the Robotic Center’s operations.
Outreach to stakeholders in the community and building relations with the locally, regionally and statewide is paramount
- Established working relationships with City of Reno, City of Sparks, Washoe County, EDAWN (Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada), LVGEA (Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance), GOED (Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development), Community Foundation of Northern Nevada, Nevada Museum of Art, Northern Nevada HOPES, large and medium sized industry in Nevada, Community Colleges (TMCC, WNC), venture capital firms in the state, and other non-profits
Awarded the EDAWN Medal
Appointed as the Honorary Member of the Sierra Angels; one of the two ever appointed as such in Sierra Angels’ 25-year history
Currently in the seventh year of the Town & Gown event that was started in partnership between Research & Innovation at UNR and Gabelli Funds