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Andrea Armani, PhD
Ray Irani Chair in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Professor of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science
Professor of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, & Chemistry 
Director, W.M. Keck Photonics Cleanroom
Director, John O'Brien Nanofabrication Laboratory

Dr. Andrea Armani is currently the Ray Irani Chair in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science with courtesy appointments in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering in the Viterbi School of Engineering as well as Chemistry in the Dornsife College at the University of Southern California. She is the Director of the W. M. Keck Photonics Cleanroom as well as the soon to open John D. O’Brien Nanofabrication Laboratory, two core nanofabrication cleanrooms at USC. She spent her 2015 sabbatical at Northrop Grumman as a Northrop Faculty Fellow. 

Dr. Armani is actively involved in several different professional societies, serving on and chairing conference committees for IEEE, OSA (CLEO), and SPIE (Photonics West). She routinely serves on review panels for NSF, NIH, and ARPA-E, is an Editorial Advisory Board member for ACS Photonics, and is on the editorial board for Optics Letters (associate editor from 2011-2017, features editor 2018-present). She is a member of AAAS and NAI, a senior member of IEEE and AIChE, a Fellow of OSA and SPIE, and a full member of Sigma Xi. She is currently a Visiting Lecturer for SPIE and for OSA. She is also the faculty advisor for the USC student chapters of AIChE and OSA/SPIE.

Dr. Armani has received several awards for research and mentoring, including the ONR Young Investigator Award, Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program New Investigator Award, NIH New Innovator Award, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. She was invited to attend the NAE Frontiers in Engineering and the NAE Frontiers in Engineering Education, and she has been invited to attend all of the NAE/RAE/CAE Grand Challenge Scholar Summits since the conception of the program. The translational impact of her research on broader society and her thought leadership has been recognized by her being named a Technology Review Top 35 Innovators under 35, Popular Science’s Brilliant 10, World Economic Forum’s Young Scientist, STS Forum Future Leader, and World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader. In addition, her dedication to mentoring the next generation of scientists and engineers has been recognized with the USC Mellon Mentoring Award for Undergraduate Mentoring and the Hanna Reisler Award for Mentoring.

Dr. Armani received her BA in physics from the University of Chicago (2001) and her PhD in applied physics with a minor in biology from the California Institute of Technology (2007), where she continued as the Clare Boothe Luce post-doctoral Fellow in biology and chemical engineering. She joined the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science department in the Viterbi School of Engineering in 2008 and held the Fluor Early Chair in Engineering from 2010-2017. 

Research Focus

Diagnostic Technologies
Imaging Probes
Mechanobiology

Education

BA

PhD

Physics, The University of Chicago-2001
Applied Physics, minor in Biology, California Institute of Technology-2007

Awards

  • Popular Science Brilliant 10- 2014 
  • Grainger Foundation Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering- 2013
  • SPIE SPIE Senior Member- 2012
  • IEEE IEEE Senior Member-2011
  • USC Viterbi Junior Research Award-2011
  • White House Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers-2010
  • National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award-2010 
  • USC USC Mellon Mentoring Award for Undergraduates-2010
  • Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program Young Investigator Award-2010
  • SPIE SPIE Visiting Lecturer-2009
  • MIT Technology Review TR 35 Top 35 Innovators under 35-2009
  • Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award -2009
  • Society of Photo-Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) Young Investigator Award-2008
  • California Institute of Technology Graduate Dean's Award for Community Service-2007
  • SPIE Optomechatronics Best Student Paper-2006
  • Luce Foundation Clare Boothe Luce Postdoctoral Fellowship-2006
  • California Institute of Technology First Place Poster-2003
  • Sigma Xi Sigma Xi award for Excellence in Research-2001

Leadership 

  • Ray Irani Chair in Engineering & Materials Science
  • Professor of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science
  • Professor of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering, USC
  • Professor of Chemistry, Dornsife College, USC
  • Director, W.M. Keck Photonics Cleanroom
  • Director, John D. O’Brien Nanofabrication Laboratory
  • Editorial Advisory Board member, ACS Photonics
  • Features Editor, Optics Letters
  • AIChE, Faculty Advisor
  • OSA/SPIE, Faculty Advisor 

Selected Publications

A. W. Hudnut, N. A. Trasolini, G. F. Hatch, A. M. Armani, “Biomechanical analysis of porcine cartilage elasticity“, Annals of Biomedical Engineering 47 (1), 202-212 (2019).

S. McBirney, D. Chen, A. Scholtz, H. Ameri, A. M. Armani, “A rapid diagnostic for point-of-care malaria screening”, ACS Sensors 3 (7), 1264-1270 (2018).

A. W. Hudnut, L. Lash-Rosenberg, A. Xin, J. Leal Doblado, C. Zurita-Lopez, Q. Wang, A. M. Armani, “Role of extracellular matrix in the biomechanical behavior of pancreatic tissue”, ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering 4 (5), 1916-1923 (2018).

A. W. Hudnut, B. Babaei, S. Liu, B. K. Larson, S. M. Mumenthaler, A. M. Armani, “Characterization of the mechanical properties of resected porcine organ tissue using optical fiber photoelastic polarimetry”, Biomedical Optics Express 8 (10), 4663-4670 (2017).

J. De Anda, E. Y. Lee, C. K. Lee, R. R. Bennett, X. Ji, S. Soltani, M. C. Harrison, A. E. Baker, Y. Luo, T. Chou, G. A. O’Toole, A. M. Armani, R. Golestanian, G. C. L. Wong, “High-Speed “4D” computational microscopy of bacterial surface motility”, ACS Nano 11 (9), 9340-9351 (2017).

A. W. Hudnut, A. M. Armani, “High-resolution analysis of the mechanical behavior of tissue”, Applied Physics Letters 110 (24), 243701 (2017).

M. Lee, A. M. Armani, “Flexible UV exposure sensor based on UV responsive polymer“, ACS Sensors 1 (10), 1251-1255 (2016).

S. E. McBirney, K. Trinh, A. Wong-Beringer, A. M. Armani, “Wavelength-normalized spectroscopic analysis of Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa growth rates“, Biomedical Optics Express 7 (10), 4034-4042 (2016).

E. K. Moen, B. L. Ibey, H. T. Beier, A. M. Armani, “Investigating membrane nanoporation induced by bipolar pulsed electric fields via second harmonic generation“, Applied Physics Letters 109 (11), 113701 (2016).

R. Hawk, A. M. Armani, “Label-free detection of 5’hydroxymethylcytosine within CpG islands using optical sensors”, Biosensors and Bioelectronics 65, 198-203 (2015).
Andrea Armani, PhD
Ray Irani Chair in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Professor of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science Professor of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, & Chemistry
Director, W.M. Keck Photonics Cleanroom
Director, John O'Brien Nanofabrication Laboratory

Dr. Andrea Armani is currently the Ray Irani Chair in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science with courtesy appointments in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering in the Viterbi School of Engineering as well as Chemistry in the Dornsife College at the University of Southern California. She is the Director of the W. M. Keck Photonics Cleanroom as well as the soon to open John D. O’Brien Nanofabrication Laboratory, two core nanofabrication cleanrooms at USC. She spent her 2015 sabbatical at Northrop Grumman as a Northrop Faculty Fellow.

Dr. Armani is actively involved in several different professional societies, serving on and chairing conference committees for IEEE, OSA (CLEO), and SPIE (Photonics West). She routinely serves on review panels for NSF, NIH, and ARPA-E, is an Editorial Advisory Board member for ACS Photonics, and is on the editorial board for Optics Letters (associate editor from 2011-2017, features editor 2018-present). She is a member of AAAS and NAI, a senior member of IEEE and AIChE, a Fellow of OSA and SPIE, and a full member of Sigma Xi. She is currently a Visiting Lecturer for SPIE and for OSA. She is also the faculty advisor for the USC student chapters of AIChE and OSA/SPIE.

Dr. Armani has received several awards for research and mentoring, including the ONR Young Investigator Award, Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program New Investigator Award, NIH New Innovator Award, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. She was invited to attend the NAE Frontiers in Engineering and the NAE Frontiers in Engineering Education, and she has been invited to attend all of the NAE/RAE/CAE Grand Challenge Scholar Summits since the conception of the program. The translational impact of her research on broader society and her thought leadership has been recognized by her being named a Technology Review Top 35 Innovators under 35, Popular Science’s Brilliant 10, World Economic Forum’s Young Scientist, STS Forum Future Leader, and World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader. In addition, her dedication to mentoring the next generation of scientists and engineers has been recognized with the USC Mellon Mentoring Award for Undergraduate Mentoring and the Hanna Reisler Award for Mentoring.

Dr. Armani received her BA in physics from the University of Chicago (2001) and her PhD in applied physics with a minor in biology from the California Institute of Technology (2007), where she continued as the Clare Boothe Luce post-doctoral Fellow in biology and chemical engineering. She joined the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science department in the Viterbi School of Engineering in 2008 and held the Fluor Early Chair in Engineering from 2010-2017.

Research Focus

Diagnostic Technologies 
Imaging Probes
Mechanobiology 

Education

BA

Physics, The University of Chicago-2001

PhD

Applied Physics, minor in Biology, California Institute of Technology-2007

Awards

  • Popular Science Brilliant 10- 2014 
  • Grainger Foundation Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering- 2013
  • SPIE SPIE Senior Member- 2012
  • IEEE IEEE Senior Member-2011
  • USC Viterbi Junior Research Award-2011
  • White House Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers-2010
  • National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award-2010 
  • USC USC Mellon Mentoring Award for Undergraduates-2010
  • Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program Young Investigator Award-2010
  • SPIE SPIE Visiting Lecturer-2009
  • MIT Technology Review TR 35 Top 35 Innovators under 35-2009
  • Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award -2009
  • Society of Photo-Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) Young Investigator Award-2008
  • California Institute of Technology Graduate Dean's Award for Community Service-2007
  • SPIE Optomechatronics Best Student Paper-2006
  • Luce Foundation Clare Boothe Luce Postdoctoral Fellowship-2006
  • California Institute of Technology First Place Poster-2003
  • Sigma Xi Sigma Xi award for Excellence in Research-2001

Leadership

  • Ray Irani Chair in Engineering & Materials Science
  • Professor of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science
  • Professor of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering, USC
  • Professor of Chemistry, Dornsife College, USC
  • Director, W.M. Keck Photonics Cleanroom
  • Director, John D. O’Brien Nanofabrication Laboratory
  • Editorial Advisory Board member, ACS Photonics
  • Features Editor, Optics Letters
  • AIChE, Faculty Advisor
  • OSA/SPIE, Faculty Advisor 

Selected Publications

A. W. Hudnut, N. A. Trasolini, G. F. Hatch, A. M. Armani, “Biomechanical analysis of porcine cartilage elasticity“, Annals of Biomedical Engineering 47 (1), 202-212 (2019).

S. McBirney, D. Chen, A. Scholtz, H. Ameri, A. M. Armani, “A rapid diagnostic for point-of-care malaria screening”, ACS Sensors 3 (7), 1264-1270 (2018).

A. W. Hudnut, L. Lash-Rosenberg, A. Xin, J. Leal Doblado, C. Zurita-Lopez, Q. Wang, A. M. Armani, “Role of extracellular matrix in the biomechanical behavior of pancreatic tissue”, ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering 4 (5), 1916-1923 (2018).

A. W. Hudnut, B. Babaei, S. Liu, B. K. Larson, S. M. Mumenthaler, A. M. Armani, “Characterization of the mechanical properties of resected porcine organ tissue using optical fiber photoelastic polarimetry”, Biomedical Optics Express 8 (10), 4663-4670 (2017).

J. De Anda, E. Y. Lee, C. K. Lee, R. R. Bennett, X. Ji, S. Soltani, M. C. Harrison, A. E. Baker, Y. Luo, T. Chou, G. A. O’Toole, A. M. Armani, R. Golestanian, G. C. L. Wong, “High-Speed “4D” computational microscopy of bacterial surface motility”, ACS Nano 11 (9), 9340-9351 (2017).

A. W. Hudnut, A. M. Armani, “High-resolution analysis of the mechanical behavior of tissue”, Applied Physics Letters 110 (24), 243701 (2017).

M. Lee, A. M. Armani, “Flexible UV exposure sensor based on UV responsive polymer“, ACS Sensors 1 (10), 1251-1255 (2016).

S. E. McBirney, K. Trinh, A. Wong-Beringer, A. M. Armani, “Wavelength-normalized spectroscopic analysis of Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa growth rates“, Biomedical Optics Express 7 (10), 4034-4042 (2016).

E. K. Moen, B. L. Ibey, H. T. Beier, A. M. Armani, “Investigating membrane nanoporation induced by bipolar pulsed electric fields via second harmonic generation“, Applied Physics Letters 109 (11), 113701 (2016).

R. Hawk, A. M. Armani, “Label-free detection of 5’hydroxymethylcytosine within CpG islands using optical sensors”, Biosensors and Bioelectronics 65, 198-203 (2015).