Faculty Interview | MIT Introduction to Bioengineering, Spri

Description: Interview with Bioengineering faculty Prof. Subra Suresh.

Bioengineering at MIT is represented by the diverse curricula offered by most Departments in the School of Engineering. This course samples the wide variety of bioengineering options for students who plan to major in one of the undergraduate Engineering degree programs. The beginning lectures describe the science basis for bioengineering with particular emphasis on molecular cell biology and systems biology. Bioengineering faculty will then describe the bioengineering options in a particular engineering course as well as the type of research conducted by faculty in the department.

Dean Subra Suresh is the Ford Professor of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds joint faculty appointments in Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biological Engineering, and Health Sciences and Technology at MIT, and served as head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering from January 2000 to January 2006. He began his tenure as Dean of the School of Engineering in July 2007.

He received his bachelor of technology degree in first class with distinction from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 1977; his MS from Iowa State University in 1979; and his ScD from MIT in 1981. He also holds an honorary doctorate in engineering from Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology. Following postdoctoral research from 1981 to 1983 at the University of California at Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, he joined Brown University as an assistant professor of engineering in December 1983; he was promoted to full professor in July 1989. He joined MIT in 1993 as the R. P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering.

Professor Suresh's current research focuses on experimental and computational studies of the mechanical responses of single biological cells and molecules and their implications for human health and diseases. His prior and ongoing work has also led to seminal contributions in the area of nano- and micro-scale mechanical properties of engineered materials.

He is the author of over 210 research articles in international journals, coeditor of five books, and coinventor on 14 US and international patents. More than 100 students, postdoctoral associates, and research scientists trained in his group occupy prominent positions in academe, industry, and government throughout the world. He has authored or coauthored three books: Fatigue of Materials, Fundamentals of Functionally Graded Materials, and Thin Film Materials.

Professor Suresh has been elected to a number of major science and engineering academies, including the US National Academy of Engineering (2002); American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2004); Indian National Academy of Engineering (2004, foreign member); TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world (2005); Indian Academy of Sciences (2005, honorary fellow); Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences (2007, honorary member); and German Academy of Sciences (2007).

He has been elected a fellow or honorary fellow in all the major materials societies in the United States and India, including the American Society for Materials International (ASM); Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS); American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME); American Ceramic Society (ACerS); Indian Institute of Metals; and Materials Research Society of India.

He is the recipient of the 2007 European Materials Medal, the highest honor conferred by the Federation of European Materials Societies, and the 2006 Acta Materialia Gold Medal. In its March 2006 issue, MIT's Technology Review magazine selected Professor Suresh's work on nanobiomechanics as one of the top 10 emerging technologies that "will have a significant impact on business, medicine or culture."

Among other major awards and honors, he has received the Sauveur Achievement Award of the American Society for Materials International (2004); the Gordon Moore Distinguished Scholarship at California Institute of Technology (2004); the Brahm Prakash Professorship at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (2004); the Senior Humboldt Research Prize from the Humboldt Foundation, Germany (2004); the Distinguished Materials Scientist/Engineer Award from TMS (2001); the Clark B. Millikan Visiting Professorship at Caltech (1999), the TFR Swedish National Chair in Engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm (1997-98); the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (1997); the Ross Coffin Purdy Award from the American Ceramic Society (1992); two Allied Signal Foundation Research Awards (1989 and 1990); the Technical Analysis Corporation Teacher Award at Brown University (1989); a Ford Foundation Research Award (1986-87); a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation and the White House (1985-90); the Champion H. Mathewson Gold Medal (1985) from TMS; the Robert Lansing Hardy Gold Medal (1983) from TMS; an Outstanding Scientific Accomplishment Award from the US Department of Energy (1982); the Premium for Academic Excellence Award from Iowa State University (1977-79); and a National Merit Scholarship from the Government of India (1971-77).

SOURCE: MIT (http://web.mit.edu/officers/dean-engineering/biography.html)