Dino Di Carlo

Bioengineering Department Chair

Dino Di Carlo is a professor and the chair of the Bioengineering Department at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. He is also a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, the inaugural holder of the Armond and Elena Hairapetian Chair in Engineering and Medicine, and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.

Di Carlo’s research focuses on applying micro- and nanotechnologies to sense, manipulate and analyze individual cells and molecules. Advances from this work have broad applications across health and medicine, including the rapid diagnosis of diseases, discovery of drugs and in cell-based therapies. He has co-founded six biotechnology startup companies based on breakthroughs from his research group, the Di Carlo Lab.

Among the many honors Di Carlo has received are the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers — the nation’s highest accolade for young researchers, the Pioneers of Miniaturization Prize, the Materials Research Society Outstanding Young Investigator Award, the National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award, and the Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering. He is a fellow of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the Royal Society of Chemistry

Di Carlo earned his doctorate from UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco. A member of the UCLA Samueli faculty since 2008, he has previously served as the Bioengineering Department’s vice chair of graduate education.