Researcher of the Year

Srikanth Pilla
ExonnMobil Employees Endowed Chair
Automotive Engineering
College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences

Pilla’s research interests are in the fundamentals and applications of sustainable and lightweight functional materials and manufacturing technologies. He is founder of the Clemson Composites Center, a multi-disciplinary, industry-focused research and development center, and leads AIM for Composites, a new $10 million U.S. Department of Energy-funded Energy Frontier Research center that is working to create a new design approach that utilizes artificial intelligence to assist the discovery of advanced composites. Pilla has amassed more than $62 million in grant awards, co-authored more than 150 peer-reviewed articles and received numerous accolades, including the Department of Energy Vehicle Technologies Office Distinguished Team Award, the Environmental Protection Agency Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award, and the S.C. Governor’s Young Scientist Award for Excellence in Scientific Research. He has advised 10 doctoral students, 22 master’s students and 20 undergraduate students.

Richard Boyles
Assistant Professor
Plant Breeding & Genetics
College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences

Boyles, a cereal grains breeder and geneticist at Clemson’s Pee Dee Research and Education Center, combines molecular and conventional breeding methods to develop disease-resistant, nutritional crop varieties and hybrids with improved productivity. He received an Innovator Award from the Clemson University Research Foundation by licensing sorghum and oat lines that are now commercialized and are being grown on thousands of acres across the southeastern United States. He is chair-elect of the C-8 Plant Genetic Resources Division of the Crop Science Society of America and is a member of key committees such as the National Wheat Improvement Committee and the U.S. Wheat and Barley Scab Initiative. He has received nearly $15 million in research funding and has published 32 peer-reviewed articles. He has advised one PhD graduate and is currently advising a postdoctoral fellow and three graduate students. Boyles earned his PhD from Clemson in 2016 and in 2019 became a faculty member in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences.