Dr. Richard W. Siegel has been the Robert W. Hunt Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute since June 1995, and was Department Head from 1995 to 2000.  In April 2001, Dr. Siegel became the founding Director of the Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center at the Institute and, since September 2001, he is also Director of the National Science Foundation Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for Directed Assembly of Nanostructures.  He was graduated from Williams College in 1958 with an AB degree in physics and received an MS degree in physics in 1960 and a PhD degree in metallurgy in 1965 from the University of Illinois in Urbana.  After two years of post-doctoral materials research at Cornell University, Siegel served from 1966 to 1976 on the faculty of the State University of New York at Stony Brook in the Department of Materials Science.  He was a research scientist in the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory from 1974 to 1995, serving for most of that time as group leader and research program manager in the areas of metal physics or defects in metals. 

Dr. Siegel has been a visiting professor in Germany, Israel, India, Switzerland and Japan, and has been active in local, national, and international professional organizations.  He is currently a member of the Nanotechnology Technical Advisory Group of the US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.  He chaired the World Technology Evaluation Center worldwide study of nanostructure science and technology for the US government that led in 2001 to the US National Nanotechnology Initiative, was chairman of the Long Range Planning Committee and a Councillor of the Materials Research Society, and is a past chairman (1992-1996) of the International Committee on Nanostructured Materials.  Siegel also served on the National Materials Advisory Board Committee on Materials With Sub-Micron Sized Microstructures and was co-chairman of the Study Panel on Clusters and Cluster-Assembled Materials for the US Department of Energy.  He has been active in community service as well.  From 1983 to 1991 he served on the Governing and Executive Boards of the two-county wide DuPage/West Cook Regional Special Education Association and also as a member of the Hinsdale Township High School District 86 Board of Education, serving from 1987 to 1991 as the President of the Board.

Active in materials research for more than 40 years, Siegel's work has concentrated on the nature and physical properties of defects in metals, atomic diffusion, and on the synthesis, processing, characterization, properties, and applications of nanostructured materials, including ceramics, metals, composites, and biomaterials.  His research activities have garnered almost $60 million in funding from federal, state, and industry sponsors.  Dr. Siegel has authored or coauthored more than 240 publications and several patents (10 issued, 8 pending), edited ten books, and presented more than 450 invited lectures around the world on these subjects.  His work is highly cited (with almost 6000 citations to date); he was listed by Science Watch as the fourth most highly cited author worldwide in materials science during 1990-94. Dr. Siegel was also an Executive Producer of "Molecularium - Riding Snowflakes". He was a founding Editor of Nanostructured Materials and is a member of the Editorial Boards of Materials Letters, the Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, and the Journal of Metastable and Nanocrystalline Materials.  Siegel is a founder and Director of Nanophase Technologies Corporation, a publicly held manufacturing company started in 1989, and his early work with them was recognized by a 1991 Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer.  In 1992 he was made an Honorary Member of the Materials Research Society of India "in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of Materials Science and Engineering" and in 1993 he was made an Honorary Member of the Materials Research Society of Japan.  Dr. Siegel is a 1994 recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Senior Research Award in recognition of his accomplishments in research and teaching.  He also presented the 1996 D.K.C. MacDonald Lecture in Canada.  In 2001, Dr. Siegel was named a RIKEN Eminent Scientist in Japan, and in 2003 in Germany he received a Deutsche Bank Prize “Pioneer of Nanotechnology – Nanomaterials”.

Professor Siegel's research focuses on the synthesis and processing, characterization, properties, and applications of nanostructured materials, including ceramics, metals, composites, and biomaterials. His research is involved with the creation of nanoscale building blocks, especially inorganic nanoparticles, and their directed assembly into useful materials and devices. His activities include a wide range of studies of polymer-based and ceramic-based nanocomposites as well as hierarchical material systems based on these components. Using such nanostructured materials, both hard and soft material systems for biomedical tissue engineering are being actively investigated along with related fundamental scientific issues.