Humphrey Professor: Dr. Diamond

The School of Engineering and Applied Science is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Scott L. Diamond as the Arthur E. Humphrey Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

Dr. Diamond received his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 1986 from Cornell University and his Ph.D. from Rice University in 1990. He taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo before joining the faculty of Penn Engineering in 1997.

Dr. Diamond researches cardiovascular therapeutic technologies in several key areas: mechanobiology, blood clot dissolving therapies, blood coagulation, drug discovery, and nonviral gene therapy. He published in Science his seminal discovery that fluid shear stress, instead of a biochemical signal, could control the genetic program of a living cell. As an expert in thrombolytic simulation, Dr. Diamond's contributions are widely recognized in the pharmaceutical and device industries. Also, he discovered the use of nonclassical nuclear localization signals for enhancing DNA-based therapies for nondividing cells.

His laboratory has advanced chemical and biomolecular engineering methods with more than $6 million in research funding from the American Heart Association, National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation. He has produced over 70 publications and patents. He has served on advisory committees to NSF, NIH, AHA, and NASA, and has consulted extensively for industry and government.

He is the recipient of the NSF National Young Investigator Award, the NIH FIRST Award, the 1999 American Heart Association Established Investigator Award, and the 1999 Allan P. Colburn Award, the highest distinction given by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers for publication accomplishment by a member under the age of 35.

Dr. Diamond is the Director of the Penn Biotechnology Masters Program, one of the largest in the country with more than 120 students. Dr. Diamond also serves as associate director of the Institute for Medicine and Engineering.

Dr. Diamond is the inaugural recipient of the Arthur E. Humphrey Chair. The chair was established to honor Dr. Humphrey by his former students at Penn in recognition of his pioneering role in the field of biochemical engineering. Dr. Humphrey served as dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science from 1972 to 1980.