Surya K. Mallapragada
Iowa State University, USA
2017

Surya K. Mallapragada is Anson Marston Distinguished Professor and Carol Vohs Johnson Chair of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Associate Vice President for Research at Iowa State University. She received her chemical engineering education from IIT Bombay (B.Tech, 1993) and Purdue University (Ph.D., 1996). She has courtesy appointments in the Materials Science and Engineering and Neuroscience programs at ISU. She served as Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering from 2009-13. She is also a Scientist and has served as Program Director of Materials Chemistry and Biomolecular Materials (2004-08) at Ames Laboratory, a US Department of Energy Laboratory. Her research interests are in the area of polymeric nanobiomaterials, specifically in drug/gene and vaccine delivery and neural tissue engineering, and in the area of bioinspired materials. She has over 150 publications and serves as an Editor of Materials Science and Engineering: R: Reports.

Her work has been recognized by several awards including a National Science Foundation Career award, a 3M Non-tenured faculty award, Iowa State University Foundation Early as well as Mid-Career Excellence in Research awards, a Big 12 Rising Star Award, an IIT Bombay Young Alumni Achievement Award and the Boylan Award for Outstanding Research. She was named one of the top 100 young innovators by MIT’s Technology Review magazine and is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2006) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2008). She was recently elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2016).

Surya has served the Food, Pharmaceutical and Bioengineering Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in several capacities, including chairing the division. She received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Food, Pharmaceutical and Bioengineering Division for sustained and committed leadership and service.