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Neha Kamat is an American professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science of Northwestern University. At Northwestern, she is a member of the Center of Synthetic Biology and the Chemistry of Life Processes institute and a preceptor with the Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program and the Molecular Biophysics Training Program.

Background
Kamat was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana. Her father, Prashant V. Kamat, is a Rev. John A. Zahm Professor of Science in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame. In 2008, Kamat graduated Magna Cum Laude from Rice University, where she received her B.S. in Bioengineering and completed research under Dr. Jennifer West. She earned her Ph.D. in Bioengineering under Dr. Daniel Hammer in 2012 from the University of Pennsylvania. She also completed her postdoctoral studies at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology under Jack Szostak.

Research
In 2017, Kamat joined the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute at Northwestern University. She leads the Laboratory of Biomembrane Engineering at Northwestern, which focuses on using synthetic biology techniques to design membrane-based biomaterial for applications in medicine, environmental modeling, and basic biology.

Kamat's group applies the principles of cell biology to engineer artificial cell which can sense and report environmental analytes and environmental physical changes and synthesize useful products. In 2019, her team showed that artificial cells could be placed in a solution to measure the concentration of specific ions, a key factor in health and bioengineering. Her research has also explored how these artificial cells can interact with biological systems; for example by binding to viruses and preventing them from infecting human cells.

Her group also investigates membrane mechanobiology with the ultimate goal of understanding why cells change their composition as a function of cell type, organelle, and/or in response to environmental stimuli and what effect these composition changes have on the physical properties of cell membranes.

Awards and Honors
Kamat has received a number of awards, including the Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award in 2021 from the National Science Foundation (NSF). She also received the Young Investigator Research Program Award from the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research in 2019. She also received the Beckman Scholars award from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation in 2005.

2021: NSF CAREER Award

2021: 2021 Young Innovators of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Award

2021: BMES Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Rising Star Award

2019: Rice Outstanding Young Engineering Alum Award

2018: Cornew Innovation Award, Chemistry of Life Processes, Northwestern University

2018: Air Force Young Investigator Research Program Recipient

2018: Selection for the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Symposium

2016: Rice Bioengineering Outstanding Undergraduate Alumna Award

2013: Solomon R. Pollack Award; thesis award in Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania

2009-2012: NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania

2008/2009: Outstanding Bioengineering Junior/Senior Award, Rice University

2005-2007: Beckman Scholars Award, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation

2004: Intel Science Talent Search Semifinalist