Behnam Pourdeyhimi to Step Down as NWI Director

Behnam Pourdeyhimi will step down from his role as executive director of The Nonwovens Institute (NWI), effective Dec. 31, after more than a quarter-century at the helm. Taking over for Pourdeyhimi is Raoul Farer, who is currently the executive deputy director of NWI and a professor of textile engineering, chemistry and science.

“I was thrilled that Raoul joined NC State last year,” Pourdeyhimi said. “I’ve been incredibly impressed with his accomplishments and firmly believe he is the right choice to lead the institute into the future.”

When Pourdeyhimi first joined NC State himself, over 25 years ago, it was in part to take on a leadership role in what was then known as the Nonwovens Cooperative Research Center (NCRC). Under his vision, NCRC morphed into NWI — becoming the world’s first accredited academic program for the interdisciplinary field of engineered fabrics.

NCRC was established in 1991 as a State/Industry-University Cooperative Research Center with matching grants from the National Science Foundation, the State of North Carolina and several industry partners. Upon the conclusion of NSF grant funding in the 1998-99 academic year — the same time Pourdeyhimi got to NC State — NCRC had to become self-sustaining.  

“I remember well the challenges we overcame and the opportunities we seized along the way,” Pourdeyhimi said.

In 2007, NCRC was discontinued and all of its programs were merged into the newly established NWI. Over the next three years, Pourdeyhimi would oversee the launch of two new state-of-the-art pilot labs — the Staple Nonwovens Lab, in 2008, and the Meltblown Lab, in 2010 — in addition to what’s today known as the Spunbond and Hydroentangling Lab, which first opened in 2002. 

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, NWI’s unique facilities and equipment were quickly repurposed to respond to the rising demand for materials required to produce the face masks frontline workers needed to protect themselves. Pourdeyhimi and his team at NWI created a new spunbond material that can serve as an effective filter without the need for additional, meltblown material — which takes more time to produce — normally used for the filtration layer.

“We took the spunbond technology and created a new generation of unique filters that have excellent filtering capability and can potentially be reused after cleaning with peroxide, or potentially an alcohol solution. Because these materials are strong, unlike classical meltblown filters, they can also be cut and sewn by traditional techniques,” Pourdeyhimi said at the time.

One of NWI’s production lines started producing up to 20,000 meters of spunbond material per day, as the institute partnered with Brooks Brothers to provide large amounts of spunbond nonwoven material to the clothing company’s manufacturing facilities. Meanwhile, NWI’s meltblowing pilot line continued making the classical meltblown material needed for N95 respirators and surgical masks.

“We created a recipe for the production of classical N95 respirator materials and will ship those materials out for industrial partners to convert these into respirators,” Pourdeyhimi said.

More recently, in 2022, NC State and NWI reached a new research agreement with Under Armour to accelerate new discoveries’ journey from the lab to the marketplace. 

“Transformative innovation is driven by partnerships between industry and academia. Our collaborations with Under Armour will rethink the future of fiber and materials to develop new solutions,” Pourdeyhimi said in a news release about the research agreement. 

Pourdeyhimi’s prowess as an inventor was recognized in 2020, when he was inducted as a Fellow into the National Academy of Inventors. With over 375 peer-reviewed publications and more than 250 conference presentations to his name, Pourdeyhimi is also a past winner of the O. Max Gardner award (2015), the highest award presented by the University of North Carolina System, and the Holladay Medal for Excellence (2018), the highest faculty award bestowed by NC State University.

“Behnam is among a rare breed of researchers in academia who are equally adept at both basic science and commercial translation — and can translate seamlessly between the two,” said Genevieve Garland, senior associate vice chancellor for research development and operations, who worked for Pourdeyhimi at NWI from 2007-14.

“Working together with Behnam at NWI was a pleasure and a privilege. He is such a visionary leader and brilliant researcher, and I can’t wait to see what his next chapter at NC State has in store for the university, the field of nonwovens and, really, the entire world.”

Pourdeyhimi will retain his appointment as the William A. Klopman Distinguished Professor of Materials in the Wilson College of Textiles, as well as his appointment as an adjunct professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and biomedical engineering at NC State.

Pourdeyhimi said that upon his return to the faculty, he plans to focus more on research and teaching while continuing to support NWI for at least a few more years.

“Dr. Pourdeyhimi is without doubt one of the most impactful faculty members in NC State’s history. He epitomizes what it means to lead in interdisciplinary research, innovation and teaching as part of our university’s land-grant mission and service to industry and society. His decades of leadership and engagement with the nonwovens industry in the U.S. and globally are the reason that The Nonwovens Institute is one of the most successful industry-academia consortia, regardless of industry sector,” said David Hinks, dean of the Wilson College of Textiles. “NWI is one of the key engines of NC State that make us a recognized top-five university for almost all metrics of innovation — especially licensed products and startup companies.

“While Behnam will no longer lead NWI, he’ll continue to support the mission of the institute, Wilson College and NC State as a Klopman Distinguished Professor, where his experience and insight will continue inspiring the next generation of fiber and polymer scientists and engineers. A wonderful point of pride for me is when I meet Wilson College alumni who enthusiastically credit Behnam’s mentorship with supporting their success in the textile industry and in society.”

Pourdeyhimi’s successor as NWI director, Raoul Farer, completed his M.S. in textiles, followed by a Ph.D. in fiber and polymer science at NC State. As a graduate student at State, Farer conducted research at NWI, where he studied novel dispersion technologies for wet-laid nonwovens and the formation of 3D meltblown structures via a robotic system.

Before returning to NC State in 2024, Farer spent a 24-year career with Freudenberg Performance Materials, where he held roles of progressive responsibility, covering research and development, production, operations, management, and technology.