Dr. Angela Belcher

Biography

Angela Belcher is the James Mason Crafts Professor in the Department of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a biological materials engineer whose expertise spans biomaterials, biomolecular materials, organic-inorganic interfaces, and solid-state chemistry devices. Her primary research focuses on evolving new materials for applications in energy, electronics, environmental remediation, and medicine. Her laboratory seeks to understand and harness nature's own processes to design technologically important materials and devices. By utilizing directed evolution, her team works with ancient organisms that have evolved to produce exquisite nanostructures, such as shells and glassy diatoms. The materials and methods developed in her lab have broad applications, including solar cells, batteries, and medical diagnostics. Belcher earned a B.S. in Creative Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and completed her Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry at UCSB in 1997. She conducted postdoctoral research in electrical engineering at UCSB before joining the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Chemistry. She became a faculty member at MIT in 2002 and took over as head of the Biological Engineering Department in July 2019.

Research Interests

Experience