Annelise Barron

Prof. Annelise Barron has been on the bioengineering faculty at Stanford since 2007. Her path to bioengineering professorship was an exciting one! As an undergraduate at the University of Washington in rainy Seattle (her home town) from 1986-1990, she studied chemical engineering (a.k.a., a grueling experiment in sleep deprivation!), earning her B.S. cum laude in 1990. Hazarding a guess that "real" jobs are probably overrated, she undertook doctoral studies in chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and after 5 years earned her Ph.D. in 1995. She then did postdoctoral research at a small biotechnology startup in Hayward, CA (ACLARA Biosciences, and additional postdoctoral research in a unique collaboration between UCSF and Chiron Corp. (Emeryville, CA). Finally reduced to taking a real job, in 1997 she joined the faculty of chemical & biological engineering at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL as an assistant professor, aiming to build a research and teaching program. After much hard work together with ~ 30 Northwestern University Ph.D. students, she earned tenure in 2003, and three years later in 2006 was awarded a full professorship. Then, the west coast beckoned. In August 2007, she moved to Stanford University, where she is now the W.M. Keck associate professor of bioengineering. Dr. Barron's research merges the disciplines of molecular biophysics, polymer science and hydrogel and innate immune system engineering with applications of novel materials and bioconjugates for medicine and biotechnology. Currently, her strongest research interests are in the biophysics of innate immune effectors, and the connection to human disease mechanisms. Learn about this fascinating topic in BioE 236!

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