Pamela Marie Norris, Ph.D.
About
After receiving her PhD from Ga Tech in 1992 and completing post-doctoral studies at UC Berkeley with Chang-Lin Tien, Pamela Norris joined the faculty at UVA in 1994, where she founded both the Nanoscale Energy Transfer Lab and the Aerogel Research Lab. Today, she is recognized globally as a leading expert in both research fields. She routinely chairs, and speaks at, international conferences on those subjects and has published over 100 heavily cited refereed journal papers. She holds patents for applications of aerogels in areas ranging from biological warfare detection, to lab-on-a-chip, to thermal insulation, along with patents for innovative thermal management techniques for jet-blast deflectors. She has served as the PI or Co-PI on over 45 sponsored research projects representing well over $25M from DOD, NSF, Industry and Foundations. She has supervised a few undergraduate theses each year and has advised 24 doctoral students, 26 master’s degree students, and many research assistants.
Pam is well-known for her mentoring skills and for her dedication to increasing the representation and retention of women faculty in the STEM disciplines, having served as the Director of UVA’s NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation program. In 2016 she was honored with the Society of Women Engineers Distinguished Engineering Educator Award “for enduring, positive influence on students’ lives as a gifted teacher, mentor, and role model; and for promoting greater diversity in STEM higher education” as well as the UVA Zintl Leadership award honoring “Excellence in work that makes a direct and significant impact on the core academic enterprise of the University and an unusually high degree of service to the University, within and beyond the expectations of the woman’s position description.” She was also the 2018 recipient of the Raven Award, which recognizes two faculty per year for their “excellence in service and contribution to the University,” the highest honor the Raven Society bestows upon an individual.