Susan Margulies to Head the National Science Foundation’s Directorate of Engineering

Susan Margulies, chair of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, has been selected to lead the National Science Foundation’s Directorate of Engineering. She is the first biomedical engineer to head the directorate, which supports fundamental research, enhances the nation’s innovation through a range of initiatives, and is a driving force behind the training and development of the United States’ engineering workforce.

Dr. Margulies will step down as chair of the Coulter Department while remaining a professor at Georgia Tech and Emory. Her appointment at the National Science Foundation begins in mid-August.

“The opportunity to serve the NSF resonates with my values — catalyzing impact through innovation, rigor, partnership, and inclusion,” Dr. Margulies said. “It’s an irresistible invitation, and it has to be to pull me away from my Coulter BME family. I’m so proud to have worked alongside this unmatched group of students, staff, and faculty in our shared drive to improve health and well-being.”

Professor Margulies has been chair of Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering since August 2017. She is the first woman to chair a basic science department in the Emory School of Medicine and the second woman chair in the history of Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering. Earlier, she served on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was the first woman to be appointed professor of biomedical engineering. Dr. Margulies is a renowned scholar in pediatric traumatic brain injury and lung injury associated with mechanical ventilators.

Professor Margulies is a graduate of Princeton University in New Jersey, where she majored in mechanical and aerospace engineering. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.