Two McCormick Alumni Named University Trustees

Northwestern University has named Northwestern Engineering alumni Jack Kang, senior manager at Wabtec Corporation; and Rodney Priestley, dean of the Graduate School and the Pomeroy and Betty Perry Smith Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University, to its Board of Trustees. 

They will join alongside David Helfand, chair, CEO, and president of Equity Commonwealth, who received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Northwestern in 1986 and an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Jack Kang (’90)

Kang is a senior manager at Wabtec Corporation, a railroad technology company, where his team determines global pricing for the $650+ million aftermarket industrial parts business.

Previously, he spent nearly 20 years in strategic marketing at the General Electric Company, where he led the annual strategic planning process, managed the pricing team, eco-certified GE’s locomotives, and managed MBA recruitment and new talent training. Prior to his time at GE, Kang worked in banking, ultimately as senior vice president of marketing analytics. Kang filed a patent application related to converting images of paper checks to electronic deposits.

Kang is a longtime volunteer leader serving the Northwestern community. He is the past president of the Northwestern Asian and Asian American Alumni Association, also known as NU-A5. Under Kang’s leadership, NU-A5 was recognized as the Northwestern Alumni Association (NAA) Club of the Year in 2020 and 2023 for their exemplary alumni impact. In 2021, he was named NAA Club Leader of the Year for his leadership and service excellence. In 2024, Kang co-organized a live music event on campus while on the steering committee of One Book One Northwestern, the community-wide reading program hosted by the Office of the Provost. Today, he serves as president-elect of the NAA Board of Directors and is a mentor in Northwestern’s Affinity Leaders and Learners (ALL) Mentorship Program.

After graduating from Northwestern with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering, Kang received an MBA from Vanderbilt University.

Rodney D. Priestley (’05 MS, ’08 PhD)

Priestley is the dean of the Graduate School and the Pomeroy and Betty Perry Smith Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University. His research focuses on the intersection of polymeric materials design and characterization, with applications across health care and the environment.

Priestley’s love of creativity and discovery fuels his research, which applies principles of physics, chemistry and engineering to nanoscale processing and characterization of polymers and soft matter. His contributions to the field of polymer physics and chemistry earned him the 2023 Carl S. Marvel Award for Creative Polymer Chemistry by the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Polymer Chemistry. In 2023, Priestley was also named a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and a Poly Fellow from the ACS.

Priestley’s earlier honors include the APS Dillon Medal, National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, among others. He was named to the Root 100 list of most influential African Americans in 2014 and selected as a World Economic Forum Young Global Scientist in 2018.

Prior to being named dean of the Princeton Graduate School in 2022, Priestley served as Princeton’s inaugural vice dean for innovation. He has cofounded several companies to translate his research into real-world applications, including AquaPao, a solar water purification technique that he developed with Princeton postdoctoral research associate Xiaohui Xu. This innovation earned the duo a spot on Newsweek’s list of America’s Greatest Disruptors.

Priestley has served on the Northwestern Alumni Association’s Board of Directors since 2019. During his graduate studies at the McCormick School of Engineering, he was a member of the Black Graduate Student Association, in which he participated in numerous outreach activities and service events to enhance diversity and inclusion within McCormick. Priestley remains committed to these issues today as a faculty member and administrator in higher education.

In 2023, Priestley spoke at Northwestern Engineering’s 2023 PhD Hooding and Master’s Recognition Ceremony.

Priestley received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Texas Tech University and a master’s degree and PhD in chemical engineering from Northwestern.