The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering’s Dr. Surya Mallapragada and Dr. Ian Schneider have received promotions that became effective August 15, 2016.
Dr. Mallapragada has been awarded the title of Distinguished Professor. The title honors exemplary performance in research and/or creative activities as reflected by a national or international reputation in the nominee’s discipline. The nominee must also have demonstrated outstanding performance in teaching and advising, extension/professional practice, or institutional service.
Mallapragada, who is also the Carol Vohs Johnson Chair (“Carol’s Chair”) in Chemical and Biological Engineering, joined Iowa State’s CBE faculty in 1996 as an assistant professor after receiving her Ph.D. from Purdue University and performing postdoctoral work at MIT. She was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2001 and to full professor in 2006. She also served as program director of the Chemistry & Biomolecular Materials Program at Ames Laboratory from 2004-2008. She served as chair of the CBE department from 2009-13.
Her research interests include smart polymers for gene delivery; polymers for vaccine delivery; bioinspired nanocomposites; nanoparticles for co-localization of multiple enzymes; and a special focus on neural tissue engineering and control of stem cell differentiation, which has applications in pancreatic cancer and nanomedicines for treating brain injuries.
Dr. Ian Schneider has been promoted to Associate Professor. He joined the CBE faculty at Iowa State as an assistant professor in 2009 after graduating with his B.S. in chemical and biological engineering from Iowa State in 2000, an M.S. from North Carolina State in 2002 and Ph.D. in 2005. In 2005 he became a postdoctoral research associate at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, where he was named a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation fellow.
Dr. Schneider’s research interests include cellular and molecular mechanisms of metastasis, with a special emphasis on understanding how cancer cells sense structure in the environment around tumors, and how structure can allow cancer cells to migrate and spread the condition.