Join the Department of Biomedical Engineering on Monday, October 5, 2026 for a Distinguished Seminar Series featuring Sharon Gerecht, Ph.D., the Paul M. Gross Distinguished Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University. Dr. Gerecht will discuss how the cellular microenvironment shapes blood vessel development, function, aging, disease, and healing, and how engineered blood vessel models can advance research and regenerative therapies.

About Dr. Gerecht

An internationally recognized pioneer in stem cell and vascular biology and engineering, Dr. Gerecht’s research centers on understanding how a tissue’s microenvironment regulates its response, with the long-term goal of developing countermeasures and therapeutics. Her lab simulates mechanical and physical stressors to understand blood vessel function, resilience, and homeostasis, thereby revealing pathways involved in injury, aging, and disease and informing tissue healing and regeneration. 

Dr. Gerecht joined Duke in 2022 and served as the Associate Dean for Research and Infrastructure at the Pratt School of Engineering until 2024. Before coming to Duke, Dr. Gerecht held the Edward J. Schaefer Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and served as the director of the Institute for NanoBioTechnology (INBT) at Johns Hopkins University. She began her tenure at Johns Hopkins in 2007 after completing her postdoctoral training at MIT. 

Dr. Gerecht is the recipient of the Allan C. Davis Medal from the Maryland Academy of Sciences (2008), the North America Vascular Biology Organization Junior Investigator Award (2009), the Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award from the March of Dimes Foundation (2009-2011), the National Scientist Development Award (2008-2012) and Established Investigator Award (2014-2019) both from the American Heart Association, the National Science Foundation CAREER award (2011-2016), the W.W. Smith Charitable Trust Heart award (2014-2017), the Johns Hopkins University Inaugural President’s Frontier Award (2015), and the Florence R. Sabin Award from the North America Vascular Biology Organization (2026). Dr. Gerecht is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2016), the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (2020), the National Academy of Inventors (2020), and the American Heart Association (2024). She is an elected Member of the National Academy of Medicine (2019) and an author of more than 200 papers, book chapters, and patents in her field.