As Vice President for Innovation and External Engagement Strategy, Van Vliet supports innovation, technology transfer and external partnerships across all Cornell campuses. Her responsibilities encompass intellectual property licensing, incubation and acceleration of startup companies, as well as external partnerships and engagement with public and private stakeholders to advance university-level initiatives and partnerships. Her portfolio includes Center for Technology Licensing activities and the Office of Corporate Engagement.

Van Vliet serves on the board of the Empire AI Consortium, Inc., launched by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, and in governance roles for regional U.S. Department of Commerce-sponsored programs that advance energy storage and semiconductor materials innovations. She serves as a working group member of the Industrial Advisory Committee, which advises the Secretary of Commerce on how to best implement the CHIPS Act.

As a professor in Cornell’s College of Engineering, Van Vliet directs a large and active research laboratory focused on material chemomechanics: the material behavior at the interface of mechanics, chemistry, physics, and biology. Specifically, Van Vliet seeks to predict how mechanical force can alter the speed of adhesive chemical reactions, and how chemical stimuli can alter the forces required to rupture adhered interfaces.

Prior to joining Cornell in February 2023, Van Vliet was the Koerner Professor of materials science & engineering and biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She directed the MIT Department of Materials Science & Engineering Nanomechanical Technology Laboratory, a multi-user facility, from 2004–2012. In 2011, she assumed co-leadership of the Singapore-MIT Alliance in Research & Technology (SMART) BioSystems & Micromechanics, an interdisciplinary research group (IRG) of approximately 175 researchers that invents and develops technology platforms for diagnostics and treatment of cell and tissue disease as well as cell therapy manufacturing solutions. Under her leadership, the group contributed key breakthroughs and innovations to cell imaging, drug screening and optical imaging; created a start-up company; and developed several devices now involved in international clinical trials. In 2017, Van Vliet was named MIT’s Associate Provost overseeing campus space management, technology licensing and corporate relations, among other responsibilities. She became MIT’s first Associate Vice President for Research in 2021.

Van Vliet was co-chair, along with Robert J. Ferl, of the Decadal Survey on Biological and Physical Sciences Research in Space 2023-2032, a publication of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).