Dr. Henry C. "Hank" Foley was appointed Vice President for Research and Dean of The Graduate School at Penn State on January 1, 2010. Prior to this he was the dean of the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) at Penn State University from November 20, 2006 to December 31, 2009. In his role as vice president for research and dean of The Graduate School, Foley is responsible for overseeing a research enterprise with over $765 million dollars in expenditures and over 9,000 graduate students in more than 150 graduate degree programs, including 121 doctorate, 110 academic master's and 73 professional master's degree programs.

Foley returned to the University in 2000 as the Walter L. Robb Family Endowed Chair and head of the Department of Chemical Engineering. Before accepting the position of dean of IST, Foley served as the University's associate vice president for research and director of strategic initiatives (beginning in 2004), where he was responsible for the development of major new research initiatives and worked closely with state and federal agencies to enhance Penn State's research opportunities. Foley also provided overall leadership for the University's Homeland Security Coordination Council, the Office of Military and Security Programs, the Worldwide Universities Network, the Center for Space Research, and the Animal Resource Program. One of his primary responsibilities was to assist with the development of major new initiatives that bring interested parties together from disparate colleges and geographic locations.

Prior to coming to Penn State, he was a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Delaware. There, he also was director of the University's Center for Catalytic Science and Technology.

Foley's extensive industrial experience includes working for American Cyanamid Company and consulting with Air Products, Monsanto, DuPont, Englehard Corporation, and many other companies.

Foley holds numerous memberships in professional and honorary societies including the American Society for Cybernetics, the Computing Research Association, Sigma Xi, Phi Lambda Upsilon, Sigma Pi Sigma, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Chemical Society. He was a founding member of the AIChE's Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division and served as its chair.

His awards and recognition include the New York Metropolitan Catalysis Society's Excellence in Catalysis Award, the Philadelphia Catalysis Club's Annual Award, the Leo C. Friend Award from the I&EC Division of the American Chemical Society, the Research Innovation Recognition Award from Union Carbide Corporation, the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, and the Thiele Lecture at the University of Notre Dame. He has authored more than 100 papers, holds almost 20 patents, and is author of the textbook, Introduction to Chemical Engineering Analysis Using Mathematica, published in 2003.