Dr. Lydia Sohn

Professor

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Biography

Lydia L. Sohn received her A.B. in Chemistry Physics, magna cum laude in 1988, her M.S. in Physics in 1990, and her Ph.D. in Physics in 1992 from Harvard University. She was a National Science Foundation/North Atlantic Treaty Organization postdoctoral fellow at Delft University of Technology from 1992 to 1993 and a postdoctoral fellow at AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1993 to 1995. Sohn was a faculty member in Physics at Princeton University from 1993 to 2003 before joining the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley in 2003. She is a core member of the UCSF-UC Berkeley Joint Graduate Group in Bioengineering and has received numerous awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, the Army Research Office Young Investigator Award, and the DuPont Young Faculty Award. In 2010, she received the prestigious W. M. Keck Foundation Medical Research Award for developing a label-free method for screening and sorting rare cells. Sohn was named a Bakar Fellow at UC Berkeley in 2013 for her innovative work in isolating and screening single circulating tumor cells from metastatic breast cancer patients. In 2014, her developed method, Node-Pore Sensing, was recognized as one of five "Revolutionary Platform Technologies Advancing Life Sciences Research" in a competition sponsored by several major foundations. She has also received the Outstanding Poster Award from the American Association for Clinical Chemistry for her work's high clinical value and potential. Sohn has served on the Executive Committee of the UCSF-UCB Graduate Program in Bioengineering and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Boulder School of Condensed Matter and Materials Physics. Furthermore, she chaired UC Berkeley's Institutional Biosafety Committee from 2011 to 2022 and served as interim Vice Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department in 2021. She is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and an Associate Member of the Women in Cell Biology Committee of the American Society for Cell Biology. Additionally, she is a core member of the UCSF-UC Berkeley Graduate Group in Bioengineering and an Affiliate Member of UC Berkeley/UCSF Computational Precision Health.

Research Interests

Experience

Professor

2003-01-01 — Present

University of California, Berkeley • Berkeley, CA

Lydia Sohn is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley and a core member of the UCSF-UC Berkeley Joint Graduate Group in Bioengineering.

Awards

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NSF CAREER Award

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Army Research Office Young Investigator Award

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DuPont Young Faculty Award

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W. M. Keck Foundation Medical Research Award

2010-01-01
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Outstanding Poster Award

2014-01-01

Courses

Group Studies, Seminars, Group Research [MECENG 298] Individual Study or Research [MECENG 299] Science Engineering Cooking [MECENG 126] Science Engineering Cooking [MECENG 226L]

Requirements for University of California, Berkeley

Doctorate Program
Requirements
GPA Requirement
Required:3
GRE Subject
Overall Score
Required:500
Overall
Required:500
TOEFL
Total
Required:90
IELTS
Overall
Required:7
Prerequisites
Bachelor's degree or recognized equivalent Preparation comparable to undergraduate major at Berkeley in Mathematics or Applied Mathematics 2 full years lower-division work (Calculus, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, Multivariable Calculus) 8 one-semester upper-division courses (Real Analysis, Complex Analysis, Abstract Algebra, Linear Algebra)
Application Checklist
  • Graduate Application
  • Statement of Purpose
  • Personal History Statement
  • Three Letters of Recommendation
  • Unofficial Transcripts
  • C.V./Resume
  • Course and Textbook List
Specialization Notes

The Mathematics Subject GRE is required for the Fall 2026 admissions cycle. General GRE is optional.