Meet The Team

Sumita Pennathur is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara, where she has led the Pennathur Lab since 2007. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Aerospace and Aeronautical Engineering from MIT (2000 and 2001) and her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University (2006), and did postdoctoral work at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Twente.

Her research asks how coupled physics at solid–liquid interfaces (electrostatics, fluid flow, ion and species transport, electrochemistry, soft matter, and solid mechanics) govern transport in confined micro- and nanoscale systems, and how that behavior can be measured, predicted, and engineered. Her group builds the measurement tools these questions demand, develops validated multiphysics and data-driven models, and uses the resulting understanding to create new capabilities: nanofluidic separation and preconcentration, bipolar-electrode sensing, nanofluidic diodes for iontronics, and programmable MEMS electrostatic pumps and actuators.

Pennathur is committed to carrying fundamental science into practice. She has founded three medical device companies: Asta, for clinical diagnostics (acquired); Alveo Technologies, which commercialized her lab's nanofluidic DNA amplification and sensing work as a point-of-care diagnostic platform; and Laxmi Therapeutic Devices, which is developing on-body, real-time glucose sensing. She has also developed health technologies for mothers that were transferred to Medela.

Her honors include the DARPA Young Faculty Award (2008), the UC Regents Junior Faculty Fellowship (2009), the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE, 2010), and the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce Innovator of the Quarter Award (2012).