Eric Garfunkel

Vice President for Global Affairs

Eric (Rick) Garfunkel is an American chemist, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Physics at Rutgers University, and Vice President for Global Affairs there since 2015, where he oversees international partnerships, study abroad, and services for more than 8,000 international students and scholars. He earned his bachelor's degree from Haverford College in 1978 and his PhD in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1983, and held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Paris-Sud in Orsay and at Fudan University in Shanghai before joining Rutgers. His research covers the synthesis and characterisation of materials for nanoelectronics, alternative energy (solar and battery) and catalysis, supported by the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy and the Semiconductor Research Corporation. He helped found the Laboratory for Surface Modification and the Institute for Advanced Materials, Devices and Nanotechnology at Rutgers, and chaired the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. He led international activities for the Materials Research Society for over a decade, has held leadership roles in the African Materials Research Society for two decades, and was inducted as a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences in 2025.