J. Andy Soria, PhD

Dr. Soria is an experienced educator, administrator, and research scientist, whose career has spanned multiple fields of science, technology, business and education industries. Over a 25+ year career, he has served many roles, including manager, chair and director, responsible for overseeing, building and managing multi-disciplinary teams, budgets, personnel and outcomes of the units under his supervision.  Dr. Soria's professional career has been focused broadly on developing new products and ventures in energy, materials and science-based innovations. He has been recognized as a subject matter expert by the United States National Academies of Science’s National Research Council for his work in sustainable fuel development and has worked for private and public companies across the U.S. and Latin America. Dr. Soria has raised over $3,5 million dollars in federal grant funds to support R&D work, and has been involved in multiple intellectual property development activities, resulting in patents, trade secrets and other forms of IP in multiple fields of science. At Pacific University, Dr. Soria was responsible for creating the Berglund Center in 2014, establishing its Mission, and overseeing the developments of all existing programs, including the Inspired ideas Competition, BoMA Grant and Boxer Makerspace.