Krystyn Van Vliet earned the S.B. in Materials Engineering from Brown in 1998, and the Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from MIT in 2002. After one year of post-doctoral research at Children’s Hospital Boston Vascular Biology Program, she joined the MIT faculty in 2004.
Prof. Van Vliet is helping define the new field of chemomechanics: The study of material behavior involving mechanics, chemistry, physics, and biology. Her overarching goal is to understand and manipulate key functions of biological cells by inspiration from coupled chemical/mechanical behavior observed in structurally simpler, non-biological material interfaces and nano-composites. Her group does integrated experimental and computational work in three main areas: chemomechanical mapping of material surfaces, especially living cells; mechanical properties of viscoelastic surfaces; and influence of mechanical forces on chemical kinetics. She seeks to understand mechanical and chemical interactions in cellular systems to map environment-structure-property relations and then exploit this understanding for eventual applications in drug delivery and antimicrobial surfaces. Some of the numerous awards recognizing her research excellence are the NSF CAREER, PECASE, DuPont Young Investigator, and Arnold & Mabel Beckman Young Investigator.