IEM News Release

Nicole F. Steinmetz Honored with Leo and Trude Szilard Chancellor’s Endowed Chair

February 05, 2026 - Congratulations to Nicole Steinmetz, Named the Leo and Trude Szilard Chancellor’s Endowed Chair at UC San Diego.

The UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering celebrated the appointment of Nicole F. Steinmetz, PhD, as the Leo and Trude Szilard Chancellor’s Endowed Chair during a ceremony at Franklin Antonio Hall. This special appointment honors Leo and Trude Szilard’s contributions and accomplishments in shaping science and institutions beyond a single field.

Dr. Steinmetz is a professor and vice chair of the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering, founding director of the Center for Nano-ImmunoEngineering, and co-director of the Institute of Engineering in Medicine’s Center for Engineering in Cancer (CEC).

This appointment recognizes Dr. Steinmetz’s leadership and interdisciplinary impact across engineering, medicine, and the life sciences. Steinmetz emphasized that the honor reflects a collective effort, saying, “I want to thank all my team members…It’s a really fantastic group of scientists, faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduate students. It’s really the effort of every single person in this group that makes this research possible. At the end of the day, I come up with some ideas, and we discuss them, but they are the people who realize all of these ideas.”

At the celebration, Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering Al Pisano and Chancellor Pradeep Khosla emphasized that endowed chairs represent one of the university’s highest academic distinctions, reserved for faculty whose work advances UC San Diego’s research, education, and innovation missions. Dean Pisano noted a “parallelism between the impact Dr. Steinmetz has had and the impact behind the naming of this chair.” Chancellor Khosla described Dr. Steinmetz as “a very high-impact scholar” whose presence strengthens the institution, adding that “because of people like you, we become greater.”

During the ceremony, Liangfang Zhang, chair of the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering, highlighted Steinmetz’s pioneering work in plant virus-based nanotechnology and described her recruitment to UC San Diego as an “extraordinarily successful” addition that has elevated both the department and the campus.

The ceremony also featured personal moments that underscored the drive behind her achievements. Steinmetz’s father joined via Zoom from Germany, and her husband spoke about her “relentless focus,” describing a career defined by persistence, ambition, and a constant push toward new ideas. Together, the professional and personal tributes framed Steinmetz’s appointment not only as a recognition of academic excellence, but as a celebration of the dedication and vision that continue to shape UC San Diego’s research culture.

The Leo and Trude Szilard Chancellor’s Endowed Chair was established through the philanthropy of Irwin and Joan Jacobs in honor of Leo Szilard, a physicist and inventor, and Trude Weiss Szilard, a physician and scholar, both former UC San Diego faculty.

Steinmetz also holds adjunct and affiliate appointments in radiology and bioengineering and is a member of multiple research centers across campus, including the Moores Cancer Center, the San Diego Center for Precision Immunotherapy, and the Institute for Materials Design and Discovery. Through her role with the IEM Center for Engineering in Cancer, she helps lead a campus-wide effort to integrate engineering with cancer biology and clinical medicine, accelerating the translation of laboratory discoveries into new technologies and therapies for cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Over the course of her career, Steinmetz has authored close to 300 peer-reviewed publications, reviews, book chapters, and patents, and has secured nearly $60 million in research funding over the past decade from federal agencies and private foundations.

As an endowed chair holder, Dr. Steinmetz will continue to advance interdisciplinary research and education at UC San Diego, with the permanent endowment providing sustained support for her scholarly work, student mentorship, and the broader mission of the Jacobs School of Engineering.