Geeta Mehta named Dow Corning Assistant Professor

U-M assistant professor Geeta Mehta has been named the Dow Corning Assistant Professor in the Materials Science & Engineering department of Michigan Engineering. She will hold the position for a three-year term, until December 31, 2019. Mehta is also an assistant professor of biomedical engineering.

Mehta’s Engineered Cellular Microenvironments Lab creates and utilizes engineered microenvironments to study how intercellular interactions and mechanical stimulation impact cellular phenotypes in carcinogenesis.

Mehta’s research is focused on various implications of biochemical intercellular interactions (cell-cell or cell-matrix interactions) and mechanical stimuli (via matrix stiffness and applied mechanical forces), in pathophysiology (ovarian and breast cancer carcinogenesis).

The Corning Assistant Professorship award alternates every three years between the departments of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering. The assistant professor selected for the award must be in the first four years of his or her teaching career.

Mehta succeeds Fei Wen, a U-M assistant professor of chemical engineering who held the Dow Corning Assistant Professor title until December of 2016.