Eric Brey, Ph.D.

David and Jennifer Spencer Distinguished Chair for the Dean of Engineering

Interim Dean, Margie and Bill Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design

Edward E. Whitacre Jr. Endowed Chair in Mechanics
Professor, Biomedical Engineering

Internationally renowned engineer Eric Brey is a distinguished leader committed to positioning UTSA as a premier institution where students can excel, and where faculty can perform high level research. His research interests include tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and biomaterials. Brey is also invested in engineering education, with a specific interest in the influence of undergraduate research on education and career trajectories.

Brey’s research lab investigates new, biomaterial approaches for engineering vascularized tissues and novel imaging methods for analysis and monitoring of engineered tissues. His research is truly impressive, with more than 150 publications, over 7,200 citations and an h-index of 50.

Brey has received more than $20 million in grant funding to support his research from organizations like the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and the San Antonio Medical Foundation. He is associate program director for the Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD) — a three-year research professional development program backed by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences — that guides a diverse group of bioscience Ph.D. students as they adjust to doctoral training and advance in their scientific careers.

Brey currently serves as co-director of the UTSA Institute of Regenerative Medicine. He served as chair of the biomedical engineering and chemical engineering department before being appointed as interim dean of Klesse College in 2023. 

Brey earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at Rice University and was an NIH post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Surgery at Loyola University Medical Center before joining UTSA in 2017.