Nasim Annabi Named Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors

Nasim Annabi, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has been named a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors.

Annabi is among 162 emerging inventors from 64 institutions named to the academy’s 2025 senior member class for their work on the development and commercialization of “groundbreaking technologies [that] can make a difference by tackling the world’s most pressing issues, improving quality of life across society, and advancing the economy,” the academy announced last week. She will be formally inducted into the academy at its annual conference in June in Atlanta.

In selecting Annabi, the academy cited her “remarkable achievements as an academic inventor and a rising leader in the field,” as well as her success in patents, licensing and commercialization coupled with her “dedication to developing technologies that have made, or aspire to make, a real impact on society.”

Annabi leads research in tissue engineering and soft biomaterials with applications in medicine. This includes ultra-strong bioadhesives and sealants for surgery and wound closure, electroconductive biomaterials for tissue engineering and biosensing, and advanced nanodelivery systems for drug and gene delivery.

Annabi has been recognized as one of the world’s most influential researchers in her field by the analytics firm Clarivate. She is also the recipient of the Young Investigator Award from the Society for Biomaterials, the 2020 Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum Young Investigator Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the Biomaterials Science Lectureship Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry in the U.K.

Prior to joining the faculty of UCLA in 2018, Annabi was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School and an assistant professor at Northeastern University. She received her doctorate in chemical and biomolecular engineering from the University of Sydney in 2010.