Krystyn J. Van Vliet is Vice President for Research & Innovation at Cornell University and Professor in the Cornell University College of Engineering, with a joint appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering.

As Vice President for Research & Innovation, Van Vliet oversees research and research compliance for non-medical research programs, as well as innovation and technology transfer – including intellectual property licensing, incubation and acceleration of startup companies – across all Cornell campuses. This includes responsibility for 25 interdisciplinary research centers and specialized user facilities that support research collaborations, education, workforce development and fee-based use by companies. Van Vliet also coordinates strategic engagements, including Cornell participation in public-private-partnerships, research consortia and industry alliances. She reports to both the Provost and the President.

As a professor in Cornell’s College of Engineering, Van Vliet directs a large and active research laboratory focused on material chemomechanics: the material behavior at the interface of mechanics, chemistry, physics, and biology. Specifically, Van Vliet seeks to predict how mechanical force can alter the speed of adhesive chemical reactions, and how chemical stimuli can alter the forces required to rupture adhered interfaces.

Van Vliet joined Cornell University as Vice President for Research & Innovation in February 2023.

Prior to joining Cornell, Van Vliet was the Koerner Professor of materials science & engineering and biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She directed the MIT Department of Materials Science & Engineering Nanomechanical Technology Laboratory, a multi-user facility, from 2004–2012. In 2011, she assumed co-leadership of the Singapore-MIT Alliance in Research & Technology (SMART) BioSystems & Micromechanics, an interdisciplinary research group (IRG) of approximately 175 researchers that invents and develops technology platforms for diagnostics and treatment of cell and tissue disease as well as cell therapy manufacturing solutions. Under her leadership, the group contributed key breakthroughs and innovations to cell imaging, drug screening and optical imaging; created a start-up company; and developed several devices now involved in international clinical trials. In 2017, Van Vliet was named MIT’s Associate Provost overseeing campus space management, technology licensing and corporate relations, among other responsibilities. She became MIT’s first Associate Vice President for Research in 2021.

Van Vliet was co-chair, along with Robert J. Ferl, of the Decadal Survey on Biological and Physical Sciences Research in Space 2023-2032, a publication of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).