Rate My Professor Harry Ploehn

Dr. Harry J. Ploehn served as Professor and Dean of the College of Engineering and Technology at East Carolina University until his retirement in 2025. He joined ECU in 2017 after a distinguished career at the University of South Carolina, where he had been a professor of chemical engineering since 1995. At USC, Ploehn held key administrative roles, including associate dean for faculty affairs and strategic initiatives in the College of Engineering and Computing, vice provost and director of academic planning for two years, and interim dean of the college. With over 25 years in higher education, he brought extensive leadership experience to ECU, overseeing programs in computer science, construction management, engineering, and technology systems, which serve approximately 2,730 undergraduate and 350 graduate students across nine undergraduate degrees, seven graduate degrees, and five certificate programs.

Ploehn's research specializes in chemical engineering, with focuses on nanotechnology, polymer engineering, polymers, polymeric materials, polymer science, materials science, material characterization, differential scanning calorimetry, polymerization, nanomaterials, and thermal analysis. He has published 95 peer-reviewed journal articles and lists 119 publications on ResearchGate. Key works include 'Ultrathin, molecular-sieving graphene oxide membranes for selective hydrogen separation' in Science (2013), 'Electrophoretic analysis and purification of fluorescent single-walled carbon nanotube fragments' in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (2004), 'Polymer composite and nanocomposite dielectric materials for pulse power energy storage' in Materials (2009), 'A Blue-Emitting CdS/Dendrimer Nanocomposite' in Advanced Materials (1998), and 'Quantitative analysis of montmorillonite platelet size by atomic force microscopy' in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research (2006). He holds four U.S. patents and has obtained $9.8 million in funding through 29 externally funded research grants, with 18 as principal investigator. Ploehn is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, recipient of the National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award (1992-1997), and several teaching awards at USC, including the Michael J. Mungo Teaching Award in 1999.