Professor Michael S. Strano is currently the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor in the Chemical Engineering Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his B.S. from Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, NY, and Ph.D. from the University of Delaware both in Chemical Engineering. He was a post doctoral research fellow at Rice University in the departments of Chemistry and Physics under the guidance of Nobel Laureate Richard E. Smalley. From 2003 to 2007, Michael was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before moving to MIT. His research focuses on biomolecule/nanoparticle interactions and the surface chemistry of low dimensional systems, nano-electronics, nanoparticle separations, and applications of vibrational spectroscopy to nanotechnology.
Michael is the recipient of numerous awards for his work, including a 2005 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a 2006 Beckman Young Investigator Award, the 2006 Coblentz Award for Molecular Spectroscopy, the Unilever Award from the American Chemical Society in 2007 for excellence in colloidal science, and the 2008 Young Investigator Award from the Materials Research Society and the 2008 Allen P. Colburn Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. From 2014 to 2015 he served as a member of the Defense Science Study Group and is currently an editor for the journal Carbon and Protocols in Chemical Biology. Michael was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2017 and the recipient of the Acrovos Professional Progress Award in 2019.