2026 CMBE Awards

Dr. Beth Pruitt earned her S.B. in Mechanical Engineering from M.I.T. where she was supported by a Navy R.O.T.C. scholarship. She earned an M.S. in Manufacturing Systems from Stanford University before serving two tours as a Navy officer. In her first tour, she worked in nuclear refueling and safety programs at the engineering headquarters of the Navy nuclear programs, and in her second tour, teaching Systems Engineering and offshore sailing at the U.S. Naval Academy. She subsequently earned her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University supported by a fellowship from the Hertz Foundation and a future faculty fellow program funded by the Sloan Foundation. Dr. Pruitt was a postdoctoral researcher working on polymer microtechnologies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland before joining the faculty at Stanford University in 2003. At Stanford, she established a microsystems and mechanobiology research group and rose to the rank of full professor in the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering. She moved to the University of California Santa Barbara in 2018 to help build a new bioengineering graduate program and served as the Founding Chair of the new Department of Bioengineering until 2025. Dr. Pruitt returned to Switzerland in 2012 as a visiting professor in the Lab for Applied Mechanobiology in the Department of Health Sciences and Technology at ETH, Zurich. She has been recognized by the NSF CAREER Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, Denice Denton Leadership Award, the NSF BRITE Fellow award, and the Emerald Foundation Distinguished Investigator Award. She is an elected Fellow of AAAS, ASME, AIMBE, and BMES. Chris Jacobs was a valued colleague, mentor, and friend and she is extremely honored to receive a leadership award named in his memory. 

David Mooney is the Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering in the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and a Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute. His laboratory designs biomaterials to promote regeneration and immunotherapy. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Inventors.  His inventions have been licensed by over 20 companies, leading to commercialized products.  He has founded companies, and is active on industrial scientific advisory boards. 

Dr. Jianping Fu is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan whose research bridges bioengineering, stem cell biology, and developmental biology to advance understanding of human development and disease. He is internationally recognized for pioneering work in “Artificial Embryos,” named one of MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2018 and “the Method of 2023” by Nature Methods. Dr. Fu has received major awards from the National Science Foundation, the American Chemical Society, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES). He is an elected Fellow of AIMBE, RSC, ASME, IAMBE, and BMES, and serves on the Governing Council of IAMBE. In addition to his research, Dr. Fu has been deeply engaged in scientific leadership and service. He served on the ISSCR Guidelines Working Group and now chairs the ISSCR Scientific Programs Committee. In recognition of his service, he received the ISSCR Public Service Award in 2025. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of npj Regenerative Medicine and serves on editorial boards of several journals including Cell Stem Cell and Biophysical Journal.