Professor of Biological, Electrical, and Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Alan J. Grodzinsky, ScD, is the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Center for Biomedical Engineering. He is also a professor of biological, electrical, and mechanical engineering in the departments of biological engineering, electrical engineering, and computer science, and mechanical engineering at MIT. His research interests include osteoarthritis and degenerative joint disease; complex microphysiological systems for drug discovery and drug delivery for osteoarthritis; tissue engineering for cartilage repair; cellular mechanotransduction; and molecular, cellular, and tissue nanomechanics. He has published over 350 refereed journal articles and reviews in these fields. He co-developed two required graduate courses in Biological Engineering at MIT and published a textbook on these subjects titled, “Fields, Forces, and Flows in Biological Systems” (Garland Science, 2011). He was elected Founding Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and is past chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Musculoskeletal Biology and Bioengineering. He is past president of the Orthopaedic Research Society, the International Cartilage Repair Society, and the Society for Physical Regulation in Biology and Medicine. He has been on the editorial boards of The Journal of Orthopaedic Research, Polymer Networks and Gels, Arthritis & Rheumatology, Biophysical Journal, and continues to serve on the Board of Osteoarthritis and Cartilage. He has also received numerous awards, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) MERIT Award for research on Cartilage Mechanobiology, the Melville Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering, the Kappa Delta Prize of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the Borelli Award of the American Society of Biomechanics, the Outstanding Achievement in Mentoring Award of the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS), the Distinguished Investigator Award of the ORS and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation, and just recently the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Osteoarthritis Research Society International. He has consulted for numerous industrial and academic institutions and federal agencies, including the NIH, the National Science Foundation, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Department of Justice. He has also received Honorary Doctorates from the University of Montreal and University of Eastern Finland (Applied Physics). While his training was originally in electrical engineering and computer science, he is a founding faculty member of MIT’s Biological Engineering Department.