Grace D. O'Connell is an American biomechanical engineer known for her research on the biomechanics of the human spine, on the degeneration and regeneration of spinal tissue, and on the comparison of its properties with the spines of animals used in the study of lumbar disc disease. She is an associate professor of

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, an ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, where she also held the Don M. Cunningham Chair in Mechanical Engineering.

Education and career

O'Connell was a high school student at

Upper Darby High School Upper Darby High School (UDHS) is a four-year public high school located in Upper Darby Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, as part of the Upper Darby School District. UDHS is also the oldest high school in Delaware County, ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. After being inspired by a high school engineering class, and also taking flying lessons as a high school student, O'Connell began an aerospace engineering program at

Virginia Tech Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also has educational facilities in six re ...

and then transferred to the

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

, graduating in 2004. She earned a Ph.D. in bioengineering in 2009 from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, supervised by Dawn Elliott. She was a postdoctoral researcher with Clark Hung at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

from 2009 to 2013 before joining the University of California, Berkeley faculty. She has also held an adjunct faculty position in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It con ...

since 2017. At Berkeley, she was promoted to a tenured associate professorship in 2019. In 2021 she was named as associate dean for inclusive excellence in the

UC Berkeley College of Engineering The University of California, Berkeley College of Engineering, branded as Berkeley Engineering, is the engineering wing of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1931, the ...

Outreach

O'Connell is a member of the National Society of Black Engineers and the Society of Women Engineers. As a woman of color in engineering, she has been sensitive to the challenges faced by minorities in engineering and has worked to improve the diversity of the field. Her work in this area has included serving as an advisor for the Berkeley Society of Women Engineers and Black Engineering and Science Student Association, and leading the Berkeley Girls in Engineering Program.

Recognition

O'Connell was the 2019 recipient of the Y. C. Fung Young Investigator Award of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, named for her "pioneering work in multiscale mechanics of musculoskeletal soft tissues". She was named as a Fellow of the

American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) is a non-profit organization founded in 1991, and headquartered in Washington. It represents 50,000 medical and biomedical engineers, and academic institutions, private industry, ...

in 2021 "for outstanding contributions to understanding biomechanical degeneration and failure of fiber-reinforced biological tissues by creating integrated computational and experimental approaches". Upper Darby High School named her to their alumni wall of fame in 2021. In 2022, O'Connell received the early career distinguished alumni award from the College of Engineering at the University of Maryland.https://eng.umd.edu/news/story/introducing-the-early-career-distinguished-alumni-society

References

External links

O'Connell Lab
* {{DEFAULTSORT:OConnell, Grace Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American biomedical engineers American mechanical engineers American women engineers African-American engineers African-American women engineers Women bioengineers University of Maryland, College Park alumni University of Pennsylvania alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering