COLLEGE STATION, Texas, May 22, 2008 - Texas A&M University System Vice Chancellor and Dean of Engineering G. Kemble Bennett has appointed Michael Pishko holder of the Charles D. Holland ‘53 Professorship in Chemical Engineering.
Pishko is head of the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering and also heads the Chemical Engineering Division of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station, the engineering research agency of the State of Texas and a member of The Texas A&M University System.
Pishko, a former faculty member at Texas A&M, returned to Texas A&M last year after serving at Pennsylvania State University for six years. At Penn State, he was a distinguished professor of chemical engineering, with joint appointments in the department of chemistry and the department of materials science and engineering.
“Dr. Pishko is a distinguished scholar and accomplished leader and we are pleased to have him returning to our program and Texas A&M,” Bennett said. “His significant strengths will be critically important to advancing our chemical engineering program, both here and in Qatar” - where Texas A&M offers degree programs in chemical, electrical, mechanical and petroleum engineering.
Throughout the past 15 years, Pishko has co-authored more than 90 peer-reviewed research publications and developed 19 U.S. patents. Pishko’s research interests include microfabricated biosensors, neovascularization of implanted biomaterials and “smart” drug delivery systems. His research with the Materials Research Institute (MRI) at Penn State centered on the integration of biological sensing tools in medical, pharmaceutical, defense and food safety fields. An implanted glucose sensor developed by Pishko is undergoing FDA trials for approval in the management of diabetes.
For his research, he has received an NSF CAREER award, was named an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, and was elected to the College of Fellows, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. He also has received the Mary Jane Kugel award from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International and the Outstanding Young Scientist award from the Houston Society for Engineering in Medicine and Biology. Since 2003, Pishko has served as an associate editor and a member of the editorial board for the IEEE Sensors Journal. Pishko has previously served on the editorial boards for Sensor Letters and Applied Biochemistry & Biotechnology.
Pishko holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
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Story by Lauren E. Kern, Engineering Communications
