Prof. Paula T. Hammond

Professor Paula T. Hammond is the David H. Koch Chair Professor of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering. She is a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, the MIT Energy Initiative, and a founding member of the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology. She recently served as the Executive Officer (Associate Chair) of the Chemical Engineering Department (2008-2011). The core of her work is the use of electrostatics and other complementary interactions to generate functional materials with highly controlled architecture. Her research in nanotechnology encompasses the development of new biomaterials to enable drug delivery from surfaces with spatio-temporal control. She also investigates novel responsive polymer architectures for targeted nanoparticle drug and gene delivery, and self-assembled materials systems for electrochemical energy devices.

Professor Paula Hammond was elected into the National Academy of Sciences in 2019, the National Academy of Engineering in 2017, the National Academy of Medicine in 2016, and the 2013 Class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  She is also the recipient of the 2013 AIChE Charles M. A. Stine Award, which is bestowed annually to a leading researcher in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of materials science and engineering, and the 2014 Alpha Chi Sigma Award for Chemical Engineering Research. She was selected to receive the Department of Defense Ovarian Cancer Teal Innovator Award in 2013, which supports a single visionary individual from any field principally outside of ovarian cancer to focus his/her creativity, innovation, and leadership on ovarian cancer research.  During her sabbatical in 2013, she was a visiting scientist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and a visiting professor at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, in the Chemical Engineering Department.   Prof. Hammond continues to serve as an Associate Editor of the American Chemical Society journal, ACS Nano.  As a part of the Year of Chemistry in 2011, she was one of the Top 100 materials scientists named by Thomson-Reuters, a recognition of the highest citation impact in the field over the past decade (2001-2011).  She has published over 200 papers, and holds over 20 patents based on her research at MIT.  She was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Biological and Medical Engineers, and the American Chemical Society Polymer Division. Professor Hammond’s work on multilayer tattoos for transdermal DNA vaccines was recently featured on the PBS Nova program, “Making Stuff” with David Pogue, and she was also featured in the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s Catalyst Series: Women in Chemistry.

Professor Paula Hammond received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984, and her M.S. from Georgia Tech in 1988 and earned her Ph.D. in 1993 from MIT.