Susan Sinnott, head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MatSE) at Penn State, will step down from her leadership role on July 1. After more than a decade of service guiding the department, she will continue her contributions to the University as a researcher and educator. Succeeding her is John Mauro, Dorothy Pate Enright Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, who brings a strong record of research excellence, innovation, and academic leadership to the role.
Sinnott steps down after a decade of transformational leadership 
Sinnott has no regrets about leaving Florida's sunshine behind ten years ago to make Happy Valley home with her husband, John, and, more recently, their basset hound, Daisy. Before arriving at Penn State in 2015, she served as the Alumni Professor of Materials Science and affiliate professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Florida.
"Enhancing the reputation and impact of MatSE at Penn State has been one of my top priorities," Sinnott said. "This department is truly special, home to passionate individuals committed to education and to addressing some of the most pressing materials challenges. It’s been a privilege to lead such an inspiring community of students, researchers, faculty, and staff who are helping to shape a better future."
Throughout her tenure, Sinnott remained committed to MatSE’s educational mission, collaborating closely with associate department heads to strengthen both undergraduate and graduate programs. Under her leadership, the undergraduate program consistently held a top ten national ranking from U.S. News & World Report. The graduate program rose from twenty-fifth in 2015 to number nine in the 2025 rankings.
Bringing alumni and students together biannually during the MatSE External Advisory Board meetings has created a valuable forum for open dialogue and feedback. These gatherings allow both groups to share insights that help the department continuously enhance the quality of its educational programs and better prepare students for careers in academia, industry, and beyond.
“Students and alumni are key stakeholders, and their feedback is important as we strive to ensure a high-quality educational experience,” Sinnott said.
Sinnott also worked closely with faculty-led committees, including the Committee on Curriculum and Assessment and the Long-Range Planning Committee.
"Faculty input is essential to strategic decision-making,” Sinnott said. “Our faculty have played a vital role in the department’s success, and I’m truly grateful for their insight and support throughout my time as department head.”
While leading MatSE, Sinnott has maintained her strong record of scholarship in interdisciplinary research and education across a wide variety of science and engineering disciplines. She is a co-principal investigator with the Center for Nanoscale Science, a National Science Foundation-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC). The MRSEC, renewed in 2020 with $18 million over six years, supports interdisciplinary research in nanoscale materials, focusing on 2D polar metals and complex oxide thin films.
Sinnott is also the deputy director for the Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Established in 2022 with $11.5 million in funding from the Department of Energy, the EFRC explores next-generation polymer electrolytes for fuel cells and solid-state EV batteries.
“We deeply appreciate Susan’s unwavering dedication to Penn State MatSE and her outstanding support of our students, faculty, researchers, and staff,” said Lee Kump, the John Leone Dean in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS). “Her leadership, along with the efforts of her team, has upheld the department’s exceptional reputation and paved the way for its continued success.”
Sinnott is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Materials Research Society, the American Ceramic Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Vacuum Society (AVS).
In 2022, Sinnott was awarded the University’s Faculty Scholar Medal in Physical Sciences for Outstanding Achievement and the AVS Medard W. Welch Award, which is the society’s highest honor; Sinnott was the second woman to receive the Welch Award since it was first awarded in 1970. She is the author of more than 290 technical publications and is the editor-in-chief of the journal Computational Materials Science.
Sinnott earned her bachelor’s degree with honors in chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin and her doctorate in physical chemistry from Iowa State University.
From LionGlass to leadership: Mauro steps into new role 
When Mauro talks about Penn State, you’d think he was born answering the call, “We are!” His deep enthusiasm and unwavering dedication to the University and its community make it easy to forget that he only arrived in Happy Valley in 2017 when he joined the MatSE faculty. As head of the department, Mauro will bring his visionary leadership and deep commitment to innovation to the role.
Mauro is an internationally recognized materials and glass science expert and co-inventor of LionGlass. Prior to joining Penn State, Mauro worked for eighteen years as an industrial research scientist at Corning Incorporated, where he was co-inventor of three iterations of Corning Gorilla Glass, a thin, durable, touch sensitive cover glass that has been used in billions of cellphones, tablets, and touch-screen devices worldwide.
“I feel truly honored and excited at this opportunity to lead the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State,” Mauro said. “I am very grateful to my colleagues for the trust they’ve placed in me and to Susan Sinnott for her outstanding leadership over the past ten years.”
“Given his amazing research accomplishments and current work on LionGlass, it is particularly gratifying that Professor Mauro is willing and eager to serve the students, faculty and staff in this important leadership role,” said Kump.
Mauro has served as the chair of Penn State’s Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in MatSE and associate head for graduate education in MatSE since 2019.
"John hit the ground running when he joined the department by writing two textbooks, revitalizing our classes on glass and kinetics, supervising the work of a small army of students and postdocs, publishing many papers in peer-reviewed journals, filing patents—including for the now famous LionGlass material—and excelling in service to the department and the profession,” said Sinnott. “Everything that he does is of exceptional quality and I expect the same in this new role.”
Mauro is a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society, the Society of Glass Technology, and the National Academy of Inventors. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and an elected academician in the World Academy of Ceramics.
Mauro is the author of more than 390 peer-reviewed publications and is the editor-in-chief of Journal of the American Ceramic Society. He is co-author of Fundamentals of Inorganic Glasses, the definitive textbook on glass science and technology, and author of the textbook published in 2021, Materials Kinetics: Transport and Rate Phenomena.
Mauro was awarded the University’s Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in 2021 and the EMS Paul F. Robertson Award for Research Breakthrough of the Year in 2020 for his pioneering work in decoding the “glass genome”—the code to design new functional glasses. He also was awarded the Wilson Award for Excellence in Teaching from EMS in 2022.
Mauro earned a bachelor of science degree in glass engineering science and a bachelor of arts in computer science, both in 2001, and a doctorate in glass science in 2006, all from Alfred University.