Eisenberger earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Princeton University in 1963 and, after a storied research career in industry, returned to Princeton in 1989 as a professor of physics. In that capacity, Eisenberger led the creation of an interdisciplinary center dedicated to the design and synthesis of advanced materials, now called the Princeton Materials Institute. 

In addition to founding PMI, Eisenberger created the cutting-edge microscopy facility known as the Imaging and Analysis Center, and he led the way in securing federal approval for the Princeton Center for Complex Materials, a National Science Foundation-supported Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. Today, PMI is one of the nation’s premiere materials research institutions, hosting around 100 Princeton faculty members from across more than a dozen disciplines, facilitating research and development for New Jersey’s innovation ecosystem, and offering a Ph.D. program in materials science and engineering. 

Eisenberger left Princeton in 1996 to join Columbia University as a professor of earth and environmental sciences, where he was the vice provost of the Columbia Earth Institute and director of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory until 1999. He later co-founded Global Thermostat, a startup commercializing solutions for harvesting carbon dioxide from the air, a process called direct air capture.

Eisenberger was a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He joined Bell Laboratories in 1968 after earning his Ph.D. in applied physics from Harvard University. Eisenberger moved on to Exxon Research and Engineering as director of their Physical Science Laboratory in 1981, while serving as a consulting professor at Stanford University. He remained active in leadership roles at multiple institutes dedicated to climate solutions until his passing.