Anseth named 2015 Bayer Distinguished Lecturer at Pitt

Kristi S. Anseth — Tisone Distinguished Professor of chemical and biological engineering, associate professor of surgery, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at the University of Colorado-Boulder Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Sciences – has been named as the recipient of the 2015 Bayer Distinguished Lectureship by the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering.

The Bayer Distinguished Lectureship is presented annually by the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, and recognizes outstanding excellence in chemical education, outreach and research. The lecture is sponsored by Bayer Material Science. Anseth will present lectures April 23 and 24.

“Dr. Anseth is one of the elite researchers bridging biology, chemistry and engineering, and our department is honored that she would accept this award,” said Steven R. Little, CNG Faculty Fellow and chair of the Swanson School’s Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering. “Her research is helping to advance the fields of biomaterials and tissue engineering, especially with regard to medical applications such as artificial valves and cartilage. We look forward to hearing her presentations.”

Anseth earned her bachelor’s degree from Purdue University in the lab of noted researcher Nicholas A. Peppas, and her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado under the direction of Christopher Bowman. Her primary research is the design of synthetic hydrogel biomaterials that replicate the extracellular matrix surrounding living cells, creating scaffolds for the growth of new tissue. In 1999, she was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35. She has filed for 18 patents, and published more than 250 research articles, and in 2003, she and her students were the first to successfully develop an injectable and biodegradable scaffold to regenerate cartilage.