[2] Friend has held the Theodore William Richards Chiar in Chemistry and served as professor of materials science in the Paulson School of Engineering.
She pursued postdoctoral research for one year the Madix Group at the Department of Chemical Engineering of Stanford University.
Friend has served in many leadership roles at Harvard, including as the first and only department chair in chemistry (2004–2007), as associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) (2002–2005), and as director of the Rowland Institute (2013–2019).
Friend also served as associate director of the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, at Stanford University (2011–2012) while on a leave from Harvard.
[1] The Kavli Foundation selected Dr. Cynthia M. Friend, Theodore Williams Richards Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University, as its president.