Nancy Sottos

Role: Maybelle Leland Swanlund Endowed Chair, Head of Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Partner: University of Illinois

Nancy Sottos holds the Maybelle Leland Swanlund Endowed Chair and is Head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. She is leader of the Autonomous Materials Systems (AMS) group at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. Sottos started her career at Illinois in 1991 after earning a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Delaware. Her research group studies the mechanics of complex, heterogeneous materials such as self-healing polymers, advanced composites, and thin film microelectronic devices, specializing in micro and nanoscale characterization of deformation and failure in these material systems.

Sottos’ research and teaching awards include the ONR Young Investigator Award (1992), Outstanding Engineering Advisor Award (1992, 1998, 1999 and 2002), the R.E. Miller award for Excellence in Teaching (1999), University Scholar (2002), the University of Delaware Presidential Citation for Outstanding Achievement (2002), the Hetényi Award from the Society for Experimental Mechanics (2004), Scientific American’s SciAm 50 Award (2008), Fellow of the Society of Engineering Science Fellow (2007), and the M.M. Frocht and B.J. Lazan awards from the Society for Experimental Mechanics.