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Professor Paula T. Hammond is the David H. Koch Chair Professor of Engineering in the Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; she is also a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, the MIT Energy Initiative, and a founding member of the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology, a multi-million dollar Army funded university affiliated research center launched in 2002 which is now in its second phase of funding. She recently served as the Executive Officer (Associate Chair) of the Chemical Engineering Department (2008-2011). Paula Hammond earned her S.B. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1984, her M.S. degree from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1988, and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 1993 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1993 to 1995, she held the NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Chemistry while at Harvard University’s Chemistry Department. Her research program focuses on the self-assembly of polymeric nanomaterials; the core of her work is the use of electrostatics and other complementary interactions to generate functional materials with highly controlled architecture. Her research in nanotechnology encompasses the development of new biomaterials to manipulate the materials-biological interface. By using directed and self-assembly of polymers, new materials surfaces and membranes are designed that manipulate protein interactions and cellular behavior. Her research team also investigates drug delivery systems with temporal control and novel responsive polymer architectures for targeted nanoparticle drug and gene delivery for cancer treatment, biomedical implants and biological templates; and self-assembled materials systems for electrochemical energy devices, including fuel cells, batteries and photovoltaics. These polymeric and hybrid materials range from nanoscale electrostatic layered thin film structures to self-assembled colloids that present nanoscale structure on their surfaces.
Professor Hammond was awarded the NSF Career Award, the EPA Early Career Award, the DuPont Young Faculty Award, and the Junior Bose Faculty Award at MIT. She was featured in 2011 as one of the Top 100 Materials Scientists by Thomson-Reuters based on her citation and overall impact, and has published over 200 papers in refereed journals. Recently her work in nanomaterials has been recognized and featured in several venues, including the journal Nature, the “Top 100 Science Stories of 2008” in Discover Magazine, the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award in 2006, The Economist, Forbes Magazine and Technology Review. Professor Hammond is an Associate Editor for the journal ACS Nano, and serves on the Advisory Board of several additional journals. She was recently selected to be a Fellow of the Polymer Chemistry Divison of the American Chemical Society. Other honors include the AIMBE Fellow, Fellow of the American Physical Society, Melvin Calvin Lecturer at UC Berkeley, the Caltech Kavli Distinguished Lecturer, Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University, Georgia Tech Outstanding Young Alumni Award, the Lloyd Ferguson Award for Outstanding Young Scientist. In April 2010, Hammond was named Scientist of the Year at the Harvard Foundation’s Albert Einstein Science Conference.
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