"Pediatric Concussion Biomechanics - What We Need to Know"

Susan Margulies, Ph.D.
Chair and Professor
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Injury Biomechanics
Georgia Tech and Emory University

Susan Margulies earned her B.S.E in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University and Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania. After a postdoctoral fellowship and faculty appointment at Mayo Medical School, she joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in 1993. Her research program spans the micro-to-macro scales in two distinct subfields: traumatic brain injury in children and ventilator-induced lung injury. Margulies focuses on prevention, intervention and treatments.  She has pioneered new methods for measuring functional effects of large or repeated tissue distortions; identified injury tolerances and response cascades, and translated these basic research discoveries to preclinical therapeutic trials to mitigate and prevent brain and lung injuries in children and adults.

Over the years, as principal investigator she has secured over $34 million in federal funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Transportation, and private foundations. Her recent engagement and negotiations with industry have led to $1.5 million in corporate research agreements. Her scholarship has been disseminated in over 350 papers, abstracts, and book chapters and numerous media features.

While directing a large, translational, interdisciplinary research program, she has taught more than fifteen undergraduate and graduate courses and has had a broad range of administrative roles at the departmental, school, and institutional levels. She has received honors for improving the lives of women faculty, and for excellence in teaching and mentoring. Margulies has created new programs to improve faculty and student diversity, access, engagement and professional development, as well as leading initiatives to enhance cross-campus research, training, and education, and engagement with industry and alumni.

The Petit Institute Breakfast Club seminar series was started with the spirit of the Institute's interdisciplinary mission in mind and started to feature local Petit Institute faculty member's research in a seminar format. Faculty are often asked to speak at other universities and conferences, but rarely present at their home institution, this seminar series is an attempt to close that gap. The Petit Institute Breakfast Club is open to anyone in the bio-community.