Konstantinos Konstantopoulos, professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, has been appointed the inaugural William H. Schwarz Professor. The William H. Schwarz Professorship was endowed through the generosity of Dr. Ronald J. Whittier in honor of his friend and mentor, Professor William H. Schwarz ’51 ’55 ’57, who was both an alumnus and an outstanding faculty member in the Department of Chemical Engineering.

Konstantopoulos is an innovator in research at the intersection of engineering, biology, and medicine with applications in cancer metastasis. His group works to elucidate how vascular and tissue microenvironments regulate the dissemination of cancerous cells from a primary tumor to distant organs throughout the body during the process of metastasis, with the goals of developing novel diagnostic and prognostic tools to predict the likely course of cancer progression and patient outcomes, as well as designing therapeutic strategies to combat cancer metastasis. Konstantopoulos is core faculty member at INBT, a project leader in WSE’s Physical Sciences-Oncology Center, recipient of numerous NIH R01 grants, and from 2008 until 2017, he served as chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, where he recruited 11 new faculty members and oversaw significant growth in the department’s graduate enrollments and in research funding.

This article originally appeared on the Whiting School of Engineering website.