Dr. Alyssa Panitch received Bachelor's degrees from Smith College in Biochemistry and from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst in Chemical Engineering. She completed her Ph.D. in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) and University of Zurich she accepted a position of Assistant Professor in the Harrington Department of Bioengineering at Arizona State University. In June of 2006 she accepted a position of Associate Professor in Purdue's Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering.