Dr. David Gracias

Biography

David Gracias is a Professor at Johns Hopkins University, primarily appointed in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering within the Whiting School of Engineering, with secondary appointments in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and subsequently conducted post-doctoral research at Harvard University before starting his independent laboratory at Johns Hopkins. He has made pioneering contributions to micro and nanotechnology, authoring 200 technical publications in high-impact journals such as Science, PNAS, and Nature. Gracias is a prolific inventor with 36 issued U.S. patents, with notable inventions including microchip back-end integration, self-folding polyhedra, and thermoresponsive DNA programmable soft robots. His work has led to translational engineering efforts, including the co-founding of a start-up. He has been recognized with numerous national and international awards, including the NSF Career Award and the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, and is a Fellow of several prestigious scientific engineering societies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Research Interests

Experience