Mandy Esch's Biography

Mandy Esch, Project Leader, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Mandy B. Esch is a project leader in the Microsystems and Nanotechnology Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. She received a Diploma (equivalent to the American M.S. degree) in Biology and a Dr. rer. nat. (equivalent to the American Ph.D. degree) in Biotechnology from the Julius Maximilians University in Würzburg, Germany. During her PhD research she developed paper-based microfluidics and microfluidic biosensors for the detection of pathogens. In 2001, Dr. Esch joined the Cornell Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility as life sciences liaison. In 2007, she joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. While there, she developed patents for cell culture on a porous 3D surface and for a multi-organ microphysiological system (MPS). She was part of the team that in 2015 received the Lush Science Prize for designing multi-organ fluidic cell culture systems. From 2015 to 2016 Dr. Esch spent a year as Assistant Professor at Syracuse University (Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering), where she taught nanobiotechnology. In August 2016 Dr. Esch moved to NIST, where she is focusing on integrating sensors with tissues-on-chips and multi-organ microphysiological systems.