Paula T. Hammond, the David H. Koch Chair Professor of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and head of the Department of Chemical Engineering, will give the talk, “Charge is on Our Side: Using Electrostatic Interplay with Cells and Tissues to Deliver Drugs” at the 2018 Materials Research Society (MRS) Fall Meeting in Boston.

Hammond 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 (and associate chair) of the Chemical Engineering Department. The core of her work is the use of electrostatics and other complementary interactions to generate functional materials with highly controlled architectures. Her research in nanomedicine encompasses the development of new biomaterials to enable drug delivery from surfaces with spatiotemporal control. She also investigates novel responsive polymer architectures for targeted nanoparticle drug and gene delivery, and has developed self-assembled materials systems for electrochemical energy devices.

Hammond was elected into the National Academy of Engineering in 2017. She was elected into the National Academy of Medicine in 2016, and into the 2013 Class of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She is 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 AIChE Alpha Chi Sigma Award for Chemical Engineering Research. Hammond 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 or her creativity, innovation, and leadership on ovarian cancer research.