David Hinks

Bio

Currently serving as Dean of the Wilson College of Textiles, Dr. David Hinks is proud and privileged to lead the College’s more than 145 full-time employees who mentor approximately 900 undergraduates, 250 graduate students, and upwards of 150 contracts with industry partners and 11 government agencies totaling greater than $10 million.Hinks is a member of both NC State’s Academy of Outstanding Teachers and Academy of Outstanding Faculty Engaged in Extension, and enjoys serving on the North Carolina Forensic Science Advisory Board. He is also a member of the North Carolina Economic Development Association. In addition to mentoring dozens of graduate students and post docs, visiting scholars and 20-plus undergraduate students in research, he has published more than 150 peer reviewed and conference papers in the area of color science, and forensic and environmental textile chemistry. Five of his former students are professors in China, Korea, Chile, Thailand, and the U.S. and his students regularly win top honors; three of his graduate students have won the AATCC Student Paper Competition; two more have gone on to win prestigious NSF Graduate Fellowships and one was a recipient of the highest undergraduate honor in the U.S., the Barry Goldwater Scholarship.Born and raised in Derby, England, Hinks worked for Courtaulds Research from 1984 to 1986 prior to attending the University of Leeds, where earned a B.S. and Ph.D. in Colour Chemistry in 1989 and 1993, respectively. In 1993, he moved to NC State’s Wilson College of Textiles as a Post Doctoral Research Associate and later Visiting Assistant Professor investigating the genotoxicity of dyes and pigments. In 1996, he joined Milliken & Co. in Spartanburg, SC, as an R&D Chemist. In Fall 1998, he returned to NC State as Assistant Professor in the College of Textiles. In 2003, he was promoted to Associate Professor and became the Program Director for the then new Polymer and Color Chemistry Program. He was promoted to Full Professor in 2009 and was named the Cone Mills Distinguished Professor of Textile Chemistry in 2010. The same year Hinks was appointed Director of Graduate Programs in the Department of Textile Engineering, Chemistry and Science and the Director of the University’s emerging Forensic Sciences Institute. In 2014, he was appointed as Interim Dean of the College of Textiles. In 2016, he was named Dean of the Wilson College of Textiles.