Penn Engineering
Engineering and technology play a role in every health care advancement, and at Penn Engineering, our innovations are shaping a healthier future for all. From designing life-saving drug delivery systems and pioneering therapeutics to advancing imaging, diagnostics and bio-inspired devices, Penn Engineers are driving discoveries that directly improve patient care and quality of life. Working at the intersection of engineering, medicine and biology, our researchers create technologies that prevent disease, enable earlier interventions and personalize patient treatments
Zisman Family Professor, Computer and Information Science
Rajeev Alur is the Zisman Family Professor in Computer and Information Science and the Founding Director of the ASSET Center (AI-Enabled Systems: Safe, Explainable, and Trustworthy) at the University of Pennsylvania. His research is focused on principles and tools for the design and analysis of safe and trustworthy systems. As part of this work, Alur is currently collaborating with clinical researchers in Penn Medicine to develop AI-based models for clinical decision making, with the goal of forecasting critical events, such as the onset of sepsis and cardiac arrest, well in advance and with sufficient explanation and actionable recommendations for care providers.
Contact: alur@seas.upenn.edu
Richard H. & S. L. Gabel Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics
Haim H. Bau is the Richard H. & S. L. Gabel Professor of Mechanical Engineering. At Penn Engineering, he directs the Micro and Nano Fluidics Lab, developing miniature devices for disease diagnostics and portable lab-on-chip systems. His team is currently creating an at-home HIV detection system that uses a low-cost disposable test, a simple processor and a smartphone for accessible care.
Contact: bau@seas.upenn.edu
Assistant Professor, Bioengineering
Lukasz Bugaj is an Assistant Professor in Bioengineering (BE) and the Co-Director of the BE master’s program. His lab uses synthetic biology and optogenetics to study how cells sense their environment and decide whether to divide, differentiate or die. Together, his team develops tools to control cell death with heat, probe protein clustering and design sensors of protein aggregation, aiming to uncover disease mechanisms and inform therapies.
Contact: bugaj@seas.upenn.edu
Research Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics
Matthew F. Campbell is a Research Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. He develops novel diagnostic technologies, including microscopic chiplets for rapid and scalable viral screening. His work includes creating low-cost, easy-to-use tools to detect pathogens, biomarkers and drugs without complex equipment, aiming to expand access to testing and strengthen public health responses.
Contact: cammat@seas.upenn.edu
Assistant Professor and Africk-Lesley Distinguished Scholar of Innovation in Engineering, Bioengineering, Computer and Information Science
Pranam Chatterjee is an Assistant Professor and the Africk-Lesley Distinguished Scholar of Innovation in Engineering in Bioengineering and in Computer and Information Science. He leads the Programmable Biology Group, developing theoretical AI frameworks for the de novo design of biomolecular sequences. By uniting generative modeling with experimental validation, his team develops programmable biologics to modulate undruggable proteins, enabling therapeutic strategies for cancer, neurodegeneration, viral disease, infertility and substance-use disorders.
Contact: pranam@seas.upenn.edu
Research Associate Professor, Bioengineering
Zhiliang Cheng is a Research Associate Professor in Bioengineering. His research focuses on nanomedicine strategies for musculoskeletal diseases, particularly osteoarthritis. He is developing advanced nanoparticle-based delivery systems for therapeutics such as enzyme inhibitors, growth factors and antioxidants, aiming to slow disease progression. This approach offers a promising, non-invasive therapy to improve outcomes and quality of life for patients with joint degeneration.
Contact: zcheng@seas.upenn.edu
Robert D. Bent Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Dennis E. Discher is the Robert D. Bent Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Director of the Physical Sciences Oncology Center/Project, with affiliations in Penn Arts & Sciences and Penn Medicine. His research combines biology and physics to study how tissue physics, including mechanics, shape cell behavior, stem cell fate, cancer progression and immune cell responses. His lab works to develop molecular tools to monitor genetic changes and influence immune responses.
Contact: discher@seas.upenn.edu
Presidential Penn Compact Associate Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Xue (Sherry) Gao is the Presidential Penn Compact Associate Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering with a secondary appointment in Bioengineering, and is core faculty in Penn’s Center for Precision Engineering for Health. Gao’s research sits at the intersection of biomolecular engineering, biochemistry and chemical biology, with a focus on advancing genome editing technologies for health applications. Her lab designs molecular tools to precisely edit DNA, discover new natural products and develop novel therapeutics, with projects that include harnessing CRISPR to uncover fungal medicines, creating safer “on-demand” gene editing tools and enabling next-generation strategies to correct multiple mutations.
Contact: xuegao@seas.upenn.edu
Alfred G. and Meta A. Ennis Professor, Bioengineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Daniel A. Hammer is the Alfred G. and Meta A. Ennis Professor in Bioengineering and in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and serves as the inaugural Director of the Center for Precision Engineering for Health. His research integrates immunology, cell mechanics and bioengineering to study immune responses and cell mimetics. Recent efforts combine microscopy and gene editing to understand leukocytes’ traction forces during immune responses, informing CAR T-cell function models and cell synthesis using enzymatic reactions.
Contact: hammer@seas.upenn.edu
Associate Professor, Bioengineering
Alex J. Hughes is an Associate Professor in Bioengineering in Penn Engineering with a secondary appointment in Cell and Developmental Biology in Penn Medicine. He leads a multidisciplinary research lab that uncovers new principles of organ development and puts them into practice to generate fundamental knowledge and create tissues for regenerative medicine. The Hughes Lab treats tissue engineering as a 4D developmental process, mimicking strategies for organ building used in the embryo. The Lab currently focuses on the kidney, an ‘orphan’ organ that has long been understudied by engineers but provides vast opportunities to meet unmet clinical needs.
Contact: ajhughes@seas.upenn.edu
Professor, Bioengineering
David Issadore is a Professor in Bioengineering with secondary appointments in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and in Electrical and Systems Engineering. He develops portable, low-cost diagnostic technologies that combine nanomaterials, microfluidics and machine learning, with projects that include tools for detecting brain injury, HIV, pancreatic cancer and genetic biomarkers. By moving advanced diagnostics out of centralized labs and into clinics or resource-limited settings, his lab aims to improve early detection and patient care.
Contact: issadore@seas.upenn.edu
J. Peter and Geri Skirkanich Associate Professor of Innovation, Bioengineering
Jenny Jiang is the J. Peter and Geri Skirkanich Associate Professor of Innovation in Bioengineering. She directs the Systems Immunology & Immune Engineering Lab, where her group develops high-throughput, single-cell platforms to map and study antigen-specific T cells. Her research uncovers immune mechanisms in infection, autoimmunity, cancer and neurodegeneration, with a translational focus on TCR-based diagnostics and immune-engineered therapies.
Contact: jnjiang@seas.upenn.edu
Nathan Francis Mossell University Professor, Bioengineering, Neuroscience
Konrad Paul Kording is the Nathan Francis Mossell University Professor in Bioengineering in Penn Engineering and in Neuroscience in Penn Medicine. He is also the co-founder of Neuromatch and the Community for Rigor. The Kording Lab develops algorithms to analyze complex datasets, with a particular focus on neural data. By combining theory, computational modeling and experimental collaborations, his group works to understand how the brain processes information and guides behavior. Their work not only explains fundamental neural mechanisms but also drives the creation of new technologies for measuring and interpreting brain activity, tools that hold significant promise for advancing human health.
Contact: kording@seas.upenn.edu
Cecilia Fitler Moore Professor, Computer and Information Science
Insup Lee is the Cecilia Fitler Moore Professor in Computer and Information Science and Director of the Penn Research In Embedded Computing and Integrated Systems Engineering (PRECISE) Center. He develops cyber-physical systems and computational frameworks to ensure medical devices and real-time systems operate safely under unpredictable conditions. Using fair algorithms, his lab is creating tools to help doctors detect and monitor glaucoma, ensuring accurate care for patients of all backgrounds.
Contact: lee@seas.upenn.edu
Associate Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Bomyi Lim is an Associate Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering with a secondary appointment in Cell and Developmental Biology in Penn Medicine. Her lab studies how multicellular eukaryotes reliably control when and where genes turn on and off despite cell-to-cell level noise. She seeks to uncover the rules coordinating gene activity dynamics to ensure proper tissue formation and prevent developmental defects.
Contact: bomyilim@seas.upenn.edu
Reliance Industries Term Assistant Professor, Bioengineering
Claudia Loebel is the Reliance Industries Term Assistant Professor in Bioengineering, where she leads research on programmable hydrogels and biomaterials to study how cells sense, interact with and remodel their surrounding matrix, with a focus on lung diseases such as fibrosis and inflammation. By building advanced in vitro and in vivo models, her team explores how dynamic mechanical and biochemical cues drive tissue repair and regeneration. Loebel’s collaborations across Penn extend this work by examining how newly secreted extracellular matrices influence cell behavior, with the goal of informing precision therapies for respiratory health.
Contact: loebelcl@seas.upenn.edu
Assistant Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
Christopher M. Madl is an Assistant Professor in Materials Science and Engineering with a secondary appointment in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. His lab studies how the extracellular matrix’s physical and biochemical properties influence cell fate in the context of aging and disease. Using dynamic and stimuli-responsive chemistries in engineered protein hydrogels, he investigates how mechanical and structural features guide stem cell fate and how aging-related changes in the tissue microenvironment impair tissue regeneration.
Contact: cmadl@seas.upenn.edu
Michael J. Mitchell is an Associate Professor in Bioengineering and the Lipid Nanoparticle Delivery Systems Group Leader at the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation. His research lies at the interface of biomaterials science, drug delivery, and cellular and molecular bioengineering to understand and therapeutically target biological barriers. The Mitchell Lab engineers lipid and polymeric nanoparticle platforms for delivering nucleic acid modalities to target cells and tissues across the body. Their work applies to a range of human health applications, including engineering CAR T cells for cancer immunotherapy, mRNA vaccines, genome editing, cardiovascular disease and in utero therapeutics to treat disease before birth.
Contact: mjmitch@seas.upenn.edu
Professor, Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics
Prashant Purohit is a Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics whose research bridges mechanics, physics and biology. His group investigates how tissues, cells and their components respond to mechanical forces, applying principles from continuum mechanics and statistical physics. A central focus is the mechanics of macromolecules, lipid membranes and fibrous networks, with applications ranging from protein unfolding to cell mechanics. Purohit’s research deepens our understanding of how biological materials and their building blocks respond to mechanical stimuli during important life processes such as locomotion, wound healing and blood clotting, and will eventually lead to rational drug design and tissue engineering for the treatment of disease.
Contact: purohit@seas.upenn.edu
Professor and Herman P. Schwan Department Chair of Bioengineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Ravi Radhakrishnan is the Herman P. Schwan Chair of Bioengineering and Professor in Bioengineering and in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. His research combines computational and experimental approaches to study how mechanical and biochemical cues affect cellular and tissue behavior. He investigates how extracellular matrix stiffness and composition influence extracellular vesicle secretion and how these vesicles contribute to tumor growth, immune response and disease progression.
Contact: rradhak@seas.upenn.edu
Richard K. Lubin Professor, Bioengineering, Genetics
Arjun Raj is the Richard K. Lubin Professor in Bioengineering in Penn Engineering and in Genetics in Penn Medicine. The Raj Lab for Systems Biology combines quantitative tools, molecular biology and mathematical modeling to develop a quantitative picture of cellular function at the single-cell level. The Lab has developed powerful methods, including single-molecule RNA fluorescence in situ hybridization (RNA FISH), to study how individual cells regulate genes and how variability between cells influences health and disease. This work has provided critical insights into cancer, infectious disease and drug resistance, paving the way for precision medicine approaches that target disease at the level of individual cells.
Contact: arjunraj@seas.upenn.edu
Eduardo D. Glandt President’s Distinguished Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
Vivek Shenoy is the Eduardo D. Glandt President’s Distinguished Professor in Materials Science and Engineering with secondary appointments in Bioengineering and in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. He directs the Multiscale Mechanobiology and Biomaterials Lab and the NSF Center for Engineering MechanoBiology. Shenoy develops theoretical and computational models to study how cells sense and respond to mechanical forces, providing insights into tissue development, repair and disease progression.
Contact: vshenoy@seas.upenn.edu
Edward Steager is a Research Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics and a member of the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Laboratory. He develops small-scale biomedical robots capable of navigating the mouth to deliver targeted treatments, focusing on microrobots that can precisely remove dental plaque and biofilms and offering a non-invasive, effective approach to improving oral health and transforming dental care.
Contact: esteager@seas.upenn.edu
Andrew Tsourkas is a Professor in Bioengineering and the Co-Director of the Center for Targeted Therapeutics and Translational Nanomedicine. His research is focused on developing novel targeted imaging and therapeutic agents for cancer. He develops strategies to redirect the immune system to eliminate tumors, improve the tumor penetration of nanomedicines and degrade “undruggable” intracellular protein targets, aiming to improve the treatment outcomes of aggressive cancers.
Contact: atsourk@seas.upenn.edu
Professor, Computer and Information Science
Lyle Ungar is a Professor in Computer and Information Science with secondary appointments in Psychology, Genomics and Computational Biology, and Operations, Information and Decisions. His group develops natural language processing and explainable AI for psychological and medical research, including analyzing social media to better understand the drivers of physical and mental well-being and building socio-emotionally sensitive, AI-based tutors and coaches.
Contact: ungar@seas.upenn.edu
Rachleff University Professor, Electrical and Systems Engineering, Radiology
René Vidal is the Rachleff University Professor in Electrical and Systems Engineering in Penn Engineering and in Radiology in Penn Medicine. He also holds a secondary appointment in Computer and Information Science and is the founding director of the Center for Innovation in Data Engineering and Science (IDEAS). Vidal develops machine learning and computer vision algorithms, including automated systems to detect involuntary movements in Tourette Syndrome patients, aiding in diagnosis and treatment planning.
Contact: vidalr@seas.upenn.edu
We welcome academic, corporate and industry partners to explore collaboration and innovation opportunities with Penn Engineering’s research community.
Please contact marcomms@seas.upenn.edu to learn more.
