Nelly Andarawis-Puri appointed Associate Director for Graduate Programs in the Sibley School

Professor Nelly Andarawis-Puri has accepted the position of Associate Director of the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering for Graduate Programs. Andarawis-Puri’s three-year term will begin on July 1, 2020.

Andarawis-Puri is the Clare Booth Luce Associate Professor in the Sibley School and Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator in the Life Sciences.  After joining the department in 2016 she has built up a strong research program in tendon biomechanics, repair, and regeneration.  Beyond her research she has been active within the College's Diversity Programs in Engineering as well as externally through the Orthopedic Research Society.

Her work in tendon research spans both basic science and translational applications. The general objective of her lab is to determine the structural and regulatory role of the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the tendon in the pathogenesis of tendinopathy and impaired healing of ruptured tendons.

Andarawis-Puri has many notable accomplishments including winning a Kappa Delta Young Investigator award from the Orthopaedic Research Society and maintaining a research program that has been continuously funded by the National Institute of Health since the start of her independent research career.

Andarawis-Puri takes the reigns of the graduate program at a challenging time, as she will welcome this fall the first cohort of Ph.D. and MS students since the COVID crisis. Managing this and supporting the eventual return to campus of our current graduate students will undoubtedly be the first priority of hers.