The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) has announced the pending induction of Dr. Brendan Harley, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, to its College of Fellows.

Election to the AIMBE College of Fellows is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to a medical and biological engineer. It is comprised of the top two percent of medical and biological engineers. Membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to engineering and medicine research, practice, or education and to the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of medical and biological engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to bioengineering education.

Dr. Harley was elected by peers and members of the college of fellows for “innovative and translational contributions to instructive and spatially graded biomaterials for regenerative medicine and for engineering dynamic cell-material interactions.”

He joined the Illinois faculty in 2008 and is a Professor and Robert W. Schaefer Faculty Scholar in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He is also the leader of the Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering research theme at the IGB. He received his SB from Harvard University in 2000 and SM/ScD from MIT in 2002 and 2006.

At Illinois, Dr. Harley has focused his efforts on developing biomaterials that replicate the dynamic, spatially-patterned, and heterogeneous microenvironment found in the tissues and organs of our body. He and members of his lab use this approach to generate insight regarding the design of biomaterials for craniomaxillofacial and musculoskeletal tissue regeneration, hematopoietic stem cell engineering, as 3D models of the glioblastoma tumor microenvironment in the brain, and to replicate dynamic tissues such as the endometrium.

A formal induction ceremony was held during the AIMBE Annual Meeting at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC on March 25, 2019. Dr. Harley was inducted along with 156 colleagues who make up the AIMBE College of Fellows Class of 2019.

While most AIMBE Fellows hail from the United States, the College of Fellows has inducted Fellows representing 30 countries. AIMBE Fellows are employed in academia, industry, clinical practice and government. They are among the most distinguished medical and biological engineers including two Nobel Prize laureates, 17 Fellows having received the Presidential Medal of Science and/or Technology and Innovation, and 158 also inducted to the National Academy of Engineering, 72 inducted to the National Academy of Medicine and 31 inducted to the National Academy of Sciences.