Craig J. Fennie, a Cornell engineering professor whose work helped reshape how scientists search for new materials, died June 14 after a heart attack. He was 54.
Fennie was an associate professor in the School of Applied and Engineering Physics at Cornell Engineering and a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, an honor that drew national attention to his unconventional approach to materials discovery.
His research focused on working backward from a desired property – such as magnetic, electrical or optical behavior – and using quantum mechanical calculations and theoretical models to identify materials that could produce it. The approach helped experimental scientists pursue materials with targeted traits rather than starting only with known compounds and testing what they could do.
Darrell Schlom, a frequent collaborator and professor in Cornell’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, said Fennie had a rare ability to make theoretical work useful to experimentalists. Schlom said Fennie’s predictions were “almost always right,” with the main failures coming when materials could not be synthesized.
Fennie joined Cornell in 2008 after serving as the Nicholas Metropolis Fellow at the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Laboratory. At Cornell, his work depended on close collaboration with researchers who could synthesize and test the materials his models identified.
Raised in working-class neighborhoods in Philadelphia, Fennie earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Villanova University. Before returning to graduate school in physics, he worked as a nightclub bouncer, worked for a small engineering company and played guitar in a band.
He later earned a doctorate from Rutgers University, where he received the Richard H. Plano Prize for the best physics dissertation, as judged by the university’s physics graduate faculty.
Fennie received several early-career honors before the MacArthur Fellowship, including the Army Research Office Young Investigator Award in 2010, the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2011 and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2012. He was later elected a fellow of the American Physical Society.
At the time of his death, Fennie had served since 2022 as director of undergraduate studies in Cornell’s School of Applied and Engineering Physics. Colleagues described him as creative, generous and deeply committed to students.
Lynden Archer, dean of Cornell Engineering, said Fennie was known not only for his “creative mind,” but also for his kindness and humanity.
Fennie is survived by his partner, Nicole Benedek, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Cornell, and their son.
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