Carlo Montemagno
Carlo Montemagno was an American engineer and expert in nanotechnology and biomedical engineering, focusing on futuristic technologies to create interdisciplinary solutions for grand challenges in health, energy and the environment. He has been considered one of the pioneers of bionanotechnology and molecular nanotechnology. Some of his fundamental contributions include the development of biomolecular motors for powering inorganic nanodevices while at Cornell and muscle-driven self-assembled nanodevices while at UCLA.
Academic career
Montemagno received his bachelor's degree in agricultural and biological engineering from Cornell University in New York, his master's degree in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering from Pennsylvania State University, and his doctoral degree in civil engineering and geological sciences from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.Montemagno died in office while serving as the chancellor of Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Right before moving to SIU, he directed the interdisciplinary Ingenuity Lab at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. He also served as the director of the biomaterials program for the Canadian Research Council's National Institute for Nanotechnology as well as a strategic research chair in intelligent nanosystems for the National Research Council. Before joining the University of Alberta, he was the founding dean of the college of engineering and applied sciences at the University of Cincinnati.
His previous academic appointments include being the founding chair of the department of bioengineering and biomedical engineering, co-director of the NASA Center for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration, and associate director of the California Nanosystems Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, the director of the biomedical engineering graduate program at Cornell University and the group leader in environmental physics at the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago. He also served in the U. S. Navy Civil Engineer Corps for nine years, leaving with the rank of lieutenant.
Controversies
In 2018, investigative journalists reported that Montemagno demanded the hiring of his daughter and son-in-law at each of the three universities he worked at. These deals included lowering job qualification requirements to enable his son-in-law to become eligible for the position, allowing Montemagno to write the job description himself, and for an interest-free loan to buy a house. Furthermore, while at the University of Alberta, Montemagno supervised his nephew for a doctoral degree, which was characterized as unheard of by an ethics expert at York University.Simultaneously, Southern Illinois University student paper The Daily Egyptian reported on interviews with 11 people who had worked with Montemagno in Edmonton, who cited disorganization, favouritism, and a culture of fear within Montemagno's Ingenuity Lab.