Tengfei Luo and Matthew J. Webber have been named Senior Members by the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), making them the first Notre Dame faculty members to receive this honor.

According to the NAI, Senior Members are “active faculty, scientists, and administrators with success in patents, licensing, and commercialization and have produced technologies that have brought or aspire to bring, real impact on the welfare of society.”

Tengfei Luo, the Dorini Energy Professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and director of Notre Dame’s MÖNSTER Lab (MOlecular/Nano-Scale Transport & Energy Research Laboratory), has established himself as a leader in the field of thermal sciences and materials engineering.

Luo’s research has led to inventions, ranging from energy-saving coatings for windows, to technologies that detect cancer and nanoplastics, to a new desalination method that uses ionic liquids and low-temperature heat.

Matthew Webber, the Keating-Crawford Collegiate Professor of Engineering and associate professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering as well as the acting director of the Berthiaume Institute for Precision Health, has pioneered advancements in the application of supramolecular chemistry for use in biomaterials and drug delivery technologies.

His patented inventions, many of which were developed in the Webber Lab, offer better ways to deliver therapeutics, including new targeting strategies for cancer and related diseases as well as new glucose-responsive delivery mechanisms for treating diabetes.

Both awardees have made significant contributions to commercialization and have licensed their inventions to start-up companies, which have secured more than three million in funding.

The 2025 class of Senior Members will be celebrated during an induction ceremony at NAI’s 14th Annual Conference, taking place June 23-26 in Atlanta, Georgia.

A full list of NAI Senior members is available on the Academy’s website.