$2.5 Million Gift from William M. Brown ’84 ME, ’87 MSME to Establish an Endowed Chair in Mechanical Engineering
William “Bill” M. Brown, ’84, ’87, CEO of 3M, has made a $2.5 million gift to the College of Engineering for the establishment of an Endowed Chair in Mechanical Engineering. Sylvie Lorente, PhD, will serve as the inaugural chairholder.
As the College of Engineering (COE) prepares for the opening of its new home, Drosdick Hall, this fall, it is moving forward with its ambitious Strategic Plan, which will impact every aspect of the College’s academic experience through an expanded research enterprise aimed at solving complex global challenges.
To further the College’s commitment to innovative research and teaching, Michele Marcolongo, PhD, PE, Drosdick Endowed Dean for the College of Engineering, recently announced that William “Bill” M. Brown, ’84, ’87, CEO of 3M, has made a $2.5 million gift to the College for the establishment of an Endowed Chair in Mechanical Engineering. Sylvie Lorente, PhD, will serve as the inaugural chairholder.
A world-renowned expert in thermal engineering, Dr. Lorente joined Villanova’s faculty in 2019 as the College of Engineering Chair Professor in Mechanical Engineering before also becoming the Associate Dean for Research and Innovation.
Dr. Lorente pioneered the field of flow architectures of heat, mass, and fluid that morph towards better efficiency. Her group works to uncover the underlying engineered and biological hierarchical flow pathways that endow complex systems with efficient properties and behaviors. Dr. Lorente’s primary domain is thermal engineering with applications in thermal management and energy storage. More recently, she has applied flow architectures to the medical sciences, helping transplant surgeons by developing models that predict blood flow through the liver.
Dr. Lorente has authored seven books, 10 book chapters and more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, placing her among the top 2% of most cited scientists worldwide. In 2019, she was elected to the prestigious Academica Europaea, that includes 80 Nobel laureates, and in 2022, she was appointed to the governing body of the European Research Council by the European Commission.
As a mechanical engineering alumnus, Bill Brown has been a longtime supporter of the College, helping to launch the INNOVATE summer program as the former CEO of L3Harris Technologies. In the INNOVATE program, Villanova Engineering undergraduates form teams and, over the course of two months, complete a functional prototype while gaining valuable engineering experience and leadership skills as they bring their team’s design to life.
Brown was recently appointed Chief Executive Officer of 3M, a $25 billion materials science and manufacturing company and a leader in areas including automotive and industrial technologies, consumer electronics, personal safety, and consumer products. He holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Villanova University, and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is the former Chair of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and a Board Director of BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company).