Hazel Screen

Hazel Screen is a British engineer, Head of the School of Engineering & Materials Science and a professor of Biomedical Engineering at Queen Mary University of London. Her research looks to understand the complex structure of biological tissues, with a particular focus on tissues and heart valves. She is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Early life and education
Screen was a student at University College London, where she completed her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. She studied advanced instrumentation for a Master's research. She started her doctorate at Queen Mary University of London in 1999, and studied structure-function relationships in tendons. Screen remained at QMUL as a postdoctoral researcher.

Research and career
In 2004 Screen was made a lecturer in Biomedical Engineering, where she was made Professor in 2015. Screen studies the mechanisms that underpin the structural integrity of soft biological tissue. She is particularly interested in tissues of the heart valve and tendon. At Queen Mary Screen leads the Tendon Research group. Tendons are fibrous tissues that connect muscles to bone, and their self-repair mechanisms become less efficient with ageing. Screen studies the interfascicular matrix of tendons and how it is impacted by ageing. She developed organ-on-a-chip technologies to recreate physiological processes, and test new treatments for tendon disease.

She serves as Director of the UK Organ-on-a-Chip Technologies Network and is Director of Queen Mary Centre for Predictive in vitro Models.

Awards and honours

 * Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers

Personal life
In her spare time Screen enjoys sports and travelling.