About the Chair
Gabriel P. López, a distinguished professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, is the interim chair of the UNM Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering through June 30, 2025.
A native of New Mexico, López joined UNM in 1993 as a faculty member in both chemical engineering and chemistry. In 2005, he became the founding director of UNM’s Center for Biomedical Engineering as well as the biomedical engineering graduate program. In 2010, he joined Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering as a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering while remaining an adjunct professor at UNM. He served five years on the STC.UNM Board of Directors (now UNM Rainforest Innovations) and was inducted as a STC.UNM (UNM Rainforest Innovations) Innovation Fellow in 2016.
He returned full time to UNM and was selected as UNM’s vice president for research in 2015, a role he served in until 2020.
López earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Colorado in 1985 and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Washington in 1991. His research interests include biointerfacial phenomena, biomaterials, self-assembly, and bioanalytical microsystems to address problems in medicine, biotechnology and environmental quality.
