Nicole F. Steinmetz

Dr. Steinmetz was nominated to serve as a director on August 21, 2020 and acting Chief Scientific Officer on August 31, 2020. Dr. Steinmetz is a Professor of NanoEngineering at the University of California, San Diego (July 2018 - present), where she also serves as the Founding Director of the Center for Nano-ImmunoEngineering. Dr. Steinmetz started her independent career at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, where she was promoted through the ranks of Assistant Professor (October 2010), Associate Professor (July 2016), Full Professor (January 2018). Dr. Steinmetz trained at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA where she was a NIH K99/R00 awardee and AHA post-doctoral fellow (2007-2010); she obtained her Ph.D. in Bionanotechnology from the University of East Anglia where she prepared her dissertation as a Marie Curie Early Stage Training Fellow at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK (2004-2007). Her early training was at the RWTH-Aachen University in Germany, where she obtained her Masters in Molecular Biotechnology (2001-2004) after completing her pre-Diploma from the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany (1998-2001). Dr. Steinmetz has authored more than 180 peer-reviewed journal articles (H Index 50), reviews, book chapters, and patents; she has authored and edited books on Virus-based nanotechnology. Research in the Steinmetz Lab is and has been funded through grants from federal agencies, including National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation (including an NSF CAREER), US Department of Agriculture, and Department of Energy, as well as private foundations, including Susan G. Komen Foundation, American Cancer Society, and American Heart Association. Over the past 10 years, Dr. Steinmetz has been awarded grants as PI and Co-PI totaling over $41 million in total funding. Dr. Steinmetz is a standing member of the NIH Nanotechnology study section. She serves on the Editorial Board of Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIREs) on Nanomedicine and Nanobiotechnology; she serves on the Advisory Editorial Board for the ACS journal Molecular Pharmaceutics, ACS Nano and RSC Journal of Materials Chemistry B. Dr. Steinmetz has won many recognitions and awards; she was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.