Katie Jane Grande-Allen (born December 15) is an American bioengineer currently the Isabel C. Cameron Professor at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

. She is currently chair of the Department of Bioengineering at Rice University. Her research focuses on an engineering approach to heart disease.

Early life and education

Grande-Allen earned her Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and Biology from

Transylvania University Transylvania University is a private university in Lexington, Kentucky. It was founded in 1780 and was the first university in Kentucky. It offers 46 major programs, as well as dual-degree engineering programs, and is accredited by the Southern ...

. She then moved to the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

for her Phd in Bioengineering. She subsequently conducted her postdoctoral fellowship in biomedical engineering with the

Cleveland Clinic Foundation Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit American academic medical center based in Cleveland, Ohio. Owned and operated by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, an Ohio nonprofit corporation established in 1921, it runs a 170-acre (69 ha) campus in Cleveland ...

Career

Grande-Allen joined the faculty at

in 2003 and began conducting research on the biochemical composition of heart valves in patients with congestive heart failure. She earned the 2011 A.J. Durelli Award by the

Society for Experimental Mechanics Society for Experimental Mechanics (SEM) is a professional organization for engineers and scientists studying the design and implementation of experiments to characterize materials, structures, and systems. Formed in 1943 as the Society for Experim ...

Inc. as a result of her experimental test on tissue function, strength, growth and abnormalities. By 2011, she earned the Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association and received a $1.2 million grant from the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

to research replacement heart valves. A few years later, she was elected a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

for her contributions to the field of heart-valve biomechanics and mechanobiolog. In 2017, Grande-Allen was chosen to replace

Rebecca Richards-Kortum Rebecca Richards-Kortum (born April 14, 1964) is an American bioengineer and the Malcolm Gillis University Professor at Rice University. She is a professor in the departments of Bioengineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering, and she is t ...

as director of the Rice Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering. In the same year, she was elected a Fellow of the

Biomedical Engineering Society BMES (the Biomedical Engineering Society) is the professional society for students, faculty, researcher and industry working in the broad area of biomedical engineering. BMES is the leading biomedical engineering society in the United States and was ...

and named chair of the bioengineering department. She has also been elected a Fellow of the

American Heart Association The American Heart Association (AHA) is a nonprofit organization in the United States that funds cardiovascular medical research, educates consumers on healthy living and fosters appropriate cardiac care in an effort to reduce disability and death ...

and Society for Experimental Mechanics.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grande-Allen, Jane K. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Rice University faculty American bioengineers University of Washington College of Engineering alumni Transylvania University alumni Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the Biomedical Engineering Society Fellows of the Society for Experimental Mechanics