TWO BIOENGINEERING FACULTY MEMBERS APPOINTED TO ENDOWED CHAIRS

Two visionary faculty members in UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Bioengineering have received new professorships and endowed chairs in recognition of their leadership, pioneering research, and dedicated service to the university, as well as their academic and professional communities. UCSB Chancellor Henry T. Yang recently announced the appointments of Michelle O’Malley to the Cliff R. Scholle Chair in Chemical Engineering and Beth Pruitt to the Mehrabian Chancellor’s Chair.

“An endowed chair is a high honor that a university bestows on a member of the faculty in recognition of their exceptional accomplishments as a researcher and mentor, and to empower them on their continued journey of discovery and social impact,” said Umesh Mishra, dean of UCSB’s College of Engineering. “We celebrate Professor O’Malley for her pioneering work of using anaerobic microbes to transform biotechnology, and Professor Pruitt for her leading-edge research on biomechanics. We congratulate both of them on the well-deserved honor.”

Pruitt, chair of the Bioengineering Department, became the inaugural recipient of a Mehrabian Chancellor’s Chair, established through a gift made in 2017 by Robert and Victoria Mehrabian, longtime benefactors of the university. Robert Mehrabian served as dean of the College of Engineering from 1983 to 1990, transforming and expanding the college over those years to international prominence through his visionary and legendary leadership, especially the recruitment of world-class faculty and establishing the highly regarded Materials Department. Since joining the UCSB faculty in 2018, Pruitt led the effort to start a biological engineering degree program, successfully launching a PhD program in fall 2022 and just recently establishing the newly anointed Bioengineering Department.

“I am incredibly honored, and this feels like a double honor, coming from Chancellor Henry Yang and Robert Mehrabian,” said Pruitt. “I’ve always admired Dr. Mehrabian and the impact he had at UCSB by establishing the Materials Department. I came here to set up our Bioengineering Department, and I used his vision as a template to build what will hopefully be another world-renowned department. So, this recognition feels like an endorsement for the work that we’ve put into launching BioE.”

Pruitt’s research interests include the biophysics and mechanisms of mechanobiology. Her lab has developed technologies to enhance maturity in human pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs) and made quantitative measurements of cell responses to drugs or in the presence of disease mutations. Their work spans the design of custom microtechnologies for small-scale mechanical measurements to questions of how mechanics mediate biological signaling. Her group seeks to answer novel questions in the areas of physiology, cardiology, stem cells, cell biology, and neuroscience. An elected Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Pruitt is also a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

The Cliff R. Scholle Endowed Chair bestowed upon O’Malley was established through a generous gift Scholle as a way to honor early leaders in the department: Professors Duncan A.