Matteo Pasquali, A.J. Hartsook Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Carbon Hub director has been named the 2025 recipient of the Braskem Award for Excellence in Materials Engineering and Science by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).
AIChE, the world’s leading professional organization for chemical engineers, has more than 60,000 members, representing over 110 countries. Sponsored by Braskem, one of the world’s largest chemical and materials companies, the award is bestowed annually and recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of materials science and engineering. Pasquali was honored for his pioneering work on sustainable carbon-based materials and clean energy technologies.
“It is a great honor to receive this award from AIChE,” Pasquali said. “I am deeply grateful to my former and current students and postdocs whose intellectual curiosity, creativity, and hard work have opened a new field of sustainable materials.” Pasquali also acknowledged Rice’s open, collaborative environment. “Right after I joined Rice in 2000, George Hirasaki encouraged me to contact Rick Smalley, who was looking for ways to translate nanoscale material properties into engineering applications. Rick welcomed me to the team, and that changed my career path.”
Pasquali is known for developing a new class of materials based on carbon nanotubes (CNT). His research group established the field of CNT soft matter, with decades of discoveries on their formation and behaviors in fluids and as soft solids. The CNT fibersdeveloped in his lab are as soft and flexible as silk, as strong as Kevlar and as conductive as metals like copper. In 2015, Pasquali co-founded DexMat, a company that produces Galvorn™ CNT products for use in aerospace, automotive, defense, energy, healthcare, and other sectors.
“Matteo has fundamentally changed how we think about carbon. His pioneering work in carbon nanotubes bridges fundamental science, scalable engineering, and industrial impact,” said Sibani Lisa Biswal, senior associate dean of engineering and computing and the William M. McCardell Professor in Chemical Engineering at Rice. “I’ve had the privilege of working with Matteo, and his ability to connect scientific insight to real-world application is outstanding. He brings a clarity of vision, generosity, and intellectual rigor that elevates everyone around him. Matteo doesn’t just develop new materials—he builds new fields and brings people together to shape the future.”
Pasquali also leads Rice’s Carbon Hub, a coalition of academia, industry, foundations, and government partners working to transform hydrocarbons into sustainable materials and accelerate electrification and decarbonization. In 2024, he was awarded the inaugural Kavli Foundation Exploration Award in Nanoscience for Sustainability.
A fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Society of Rheology, Pasquali has also received the NSF CAREER Award, Goradia Innovation Grand Prize, Herschel Rich Invention Award, and the Rice Presidential Mentoring Award, among others.
Pasquali will be presented with the award at the Materials Engineering and Sciences Division Plenary Session during the AIChE Annual Meeting in Boston in November.