Mario Eden, the Joe T. and Billie Carole McMillan Professor and former chair of Auburn University’s Department of Chemical Engineering, began his tenure as the 14th dean of the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering in May 2023. He succeeded Steve Taylor, who was named as interim dean in April 2022 when then-Dean Chris Roberts was named as Auburn University’s 21st president.
Eden previously served as chair and professor of the Department of Chemical Engineering since 2012, as an associate professor from 2008-12 and as an assistant professor from 2004-08. From 2014-16, he also served a term as acting director of the Alabama Center for Paper and Bioresource Engineering. As the chemical engineering department chair, Eden led the department to its highest U. S. News & World Report Graduate Program ranking ever; increased undergraduate enrollment to record numbers with incoming freshmen with ACT scores of 30 or higher for 11 years in a row; successfully added 17 tenure-track faculty members and two full-time lecturers during the past 10 years, including the department achieving the highest percentage of female full professors among any chemical engineering department in the country; increased philanthropic support of the program by millions of dollars; and successfully led the department through the national accreditation process in 2016 and 2022.
He earned master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from the Technical University of Denmark in 1999 and 2003, respectively. His expertise and research interests center on process systems engineering and computer-aided process engineering; process simulation, design, integration and optimization; and product and molecular synthesis/design. Eden has established a strong record of scholarly productivity and academic achievement, including more than 165 refereed publications and nearly 450 invited talks and conference presentations. He has secured more than $29 million in extramural grants and contracts as principal investigator (PI) or co-PI from a wide range of federal and industrial sources.