Board to Help with Strategic Planning for International Efforts in Research, Education and Innovation

Alex Ignatiev, Cullen professor of physics, chemistry and electrical and computer engineering and director of the Center for Advanced Materials in the University of Houston’s College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, has been invited to be a member of the International Academic Advisory Board of Tomsk State University in Tomsk, Russia. The Board is comprised of 15 world-renowned scholars, including two Nobel Laureates and 10 directors of worldwide research centers.

Tomsk State University is the oldest university in the Asian part of Russia, and is regarded as one of the top three universities in all of Russia. The university enrolls more than 23,000 students in 162 departments with a principal focus in the sciences and engineering. It has 1,250 faculty including a Nobel Laureate and 17 members of the Academy of Sciences.

The university was designated as one of the first five “National Research Universities” by the Russian government in 2010 under the new Russian program of fostering research within universities and not only within the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“One focus of the newly-formed board will be to help increase the competitiveness of Tomsk State University among the world’s leading international research and educational universities,” Ignatiev said. “I’m honored to join the board and to work with such an impressive group of members.”

The advisory board will also work to increase university internationalization in the areas of research, education, and innovation and to guide the university in the development of a strategic plan for success.