Nicholas A. Peppas is the Cockrell Family Regents Chair with appointments in the Department of Chemical Engineering, the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the Department od Surgery in the Dell Medical School, and the Division of Pharmaceutics in the College of Pharmacy, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also the Director of the Institute for Biomaterials, Drug Delivery and Regenerative Medicine.
Peppas is a world leader in biomaterials, nanomaterials, polymer physics, drug delivery and bionanotechnology. The multidisciplinary approach of his research blends modern molecular and cellular biology with engineering to generate the next-generation of medical systems and devices for patient treatment. He set the fundamentals and rational design of drug delivery systems over the past forty years and developed models of drug and protein diffusion in controlled release devices and biological tissues. In 2012 he received the Founders Award of the National Academy of Engineering, the highest recognition of the Academy, for these contributions to the field.
Peppas is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Inventors, the Academy of Athens (the Greek Academy), the National Academy of France, the Royal Academy of Pharmacy of Spain, and the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Sciences of Texas.
He is also a member of the National Board of Materials and Manufacturing, the Board that sets guidelines for the production and manufacture of materials.
He has been recognized with awards from AIChE (Founders Award, William Walker Award, Institute Lecture, Jay Bailey Award, Bioengineering Award, Materials Award); the American Chemical Society (Applied Polymer Science Award); the Biomedical Engineering Society (the Distinguished Scientist Award and the Pritzker Distinguished Lectureship); the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (Galletti Award); the Society for Biomaterials (Founders, Clemson and Hall Awards); the Controlled Release Society (Life Contributions, Founders, Heller and Eurand Awards); the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (Wurster Award and the Pharmaceutical Technology Award).
In 2008, AIChE named him one of the One Hundred Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era.
He is Past-President of the International Union of Societies of Biomaterials Science and Engineering, Past-Chair of the Engineering Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Past-Chair of the Council of BME Chairs, Past-President of the Society for Biomaterials and the Controlled Release Society. He is a fellow of AAAS, AIChE, APS, ACS, MRS, SFB, BMES, AIMBE, CRS, AAPS, and ASEE.
He is a highly cited scientist (92,000 citations, H=142) and has supervised the research of 105 PhDs and about 180 postdocs and visiting scientists.
Peppas holds a Dipl. Eng. from the NTU of Athens (1971), a Sc.D. from MIT (1973), and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Ghent (Belgium), Parma (Italy), Athens (Greece), Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Patras (Greece), and an honorary professorship from Sichuan University (China).