Katsuo Kurabayashi

Katsuo Kurabayashi is a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Prior to his faculty appointment at NYU, he was a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His area of research expertise is in micro/nanoscale biosensors, biochemical reactors, and analytical instrumentation using nanofabrication technology, microfluidic devices, semiconductor processing for infectious disease screening, human-health environmental monitoring, and protein engineering. 

His recent research focuses on integrating scientific knowledge and engineering principles at a minuscule scale, approximately 1/1000-1/10,000^th the size of a human hair diameter. This interdisciplinary approach aims to address healthcare and life sciences requirements effectively. His research group has successfully pioneered a cutting-edge microfluidic biosensor platform. This groundbreaking advancement enables swift diagnostics and treatment for critically ill children in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), who are experiencing life-threatening inflammatory reactions due to infection, injury, surgery, or cancer immunotherapy.

His research has been funded by NSF, DoD, NIH, NASA, IARPA, EPA, and Cancer Research Institute, and Coulter Foundation grants and other industry contracts and grants from Ford Motor Company and Agilent Technologies. 

He received his B.S. in Precision Engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 1992, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University, CA, in 1994 and 1998, respectively.

He has authored and co-authored nearly 200 peer-reviewed papers and holds 11 U.S., three of which has been licensed for commercialization. A number of his publications have been selected by reviewers and editors as hot 10%, high-quality articles and featured as a cover article of journals, such as Applied Physics Letters, Advanced Healthcare Materials, Advanced Materials Interfaces, Small, Lab on a Chip, and J.Vac. Sci. Technol. 

He has delivered more than 60 research talks as an invited speaker and a keynote/plenary speaker at peer academic institutions, including Stanford, UC Berkeley, Caltech, Columbia, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, and UIUC, and professional conferences of IEEE and SPIE. 

He received a 2001 NSF Early Faculty Career Development (CAREER) Award, and the Robert Caddell Memorial Award in 2005, the Pi Tau Sigma Outstanding Professor Award in 2007, the University of Michigan Mechanical Engineering Outstanding Achievement Award in 2013, the Ted Kennedy Award in 2015, and the Wise-Najafi Prize for Engineering Excellence in the Miniature World in 2019 from the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. 

He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME).