Christine E. Schmidt, Ph.D.

Link to Full CV

Education

• BS Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin (1988)
• PhD Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois (1995)
  (with D. A. Lauffenburger)
• NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, MIT (1994-1996)
  (with R. Langer)

Professional Positions

• Distinguished Professor, August 2023 – present
• J. Crayton Pruitt Family Endowed Chair, Jan. 2013 – present
• Professor, J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering, U. Florida, Jan. 2013 – August 2023
• Department Chair, J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering, U. Florida, Jan. 2013 – May 2023
• B.F. Goodrich Endowed Professorship in Materials Engineering, Sept. 2009 – Dec. 2012
• Professor, Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Fall 2007 – Dec. 2012
• Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering, UT Austin, Fall 2002 – Fall 2007
• Graduate Adviser, Biomedical Engineering Dept, UT Austin, Fall 2001 – Summer 2004
• Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering Department, UT Austin, Fall 2001 – Summer 2002
• Laurence E. McMakin, Jr. Centennial Fellow in Chemical Engineering, Fall 1999 – Fall 2009
• Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering Department, UT Austin, Fall 1996 – Fall 2001

Biosketch

(Updated Summer 2024)

Dr. Schmidt is a Distinguished Professor, the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Endowed Chair, and former Department Chair for the University of Florida J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering. She is also an affiliate faculty member in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering, and a member of the McKnight Brain Institute and the Breathing Research and Therapeutics Center. Prior to joining UF, Dr. Schmidt was the B.F. Goodrich Endowed Professor at the University of Texas at Austin in both Biomedical Engineering (founding member) and Chemical Engineering. She was also a member of the Texas Materials Institute.

When Dr. Schmidt stepped down as Chair of the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering in May 2023 after a decade, the department included 30 faculty, 500 undergraduates, 150 graduate students, and 21 staff. Under her leadership, UF’s BME graduate and undergraduate programs ranked 12th and 10th, respectively, among national public institutions (U.S. News & World Report). The undergraduate program achieved ABET accreditation in 2019, and the graduate program ranking rose by more than 21 spots (public) and 30 spots (overall) since 2013. Dr. Schmidt launched initiatives to enhance the department’s visibility, strengthen partnerships, expand interdisciplinary research, and promote the translation of engineering innovations into biomedical applications. She has been a champion of diversity and inclusion, recruiting 24 new faculty members since 2013, including increasing the number of women faculty from 2 to 16 (55%) and underrepresented minority faculty from 1 to 7 (24%). Research expenditures per faculty more than tripled, and the department secured over $3M in new gifts and industrial support. Before joining UF, Dr. Schmidt played a key role in developing the BME Department at UT Austin, where she was a founding member, inaugural Graduate Program Chair, and led faculty recruitment efforts. She also helped secure Whitaker Education funding, NSF IGERT grants, and developed initiatives to recruit and retain women faculty.

Dr. Schmidt has held key leadership roles in major professional organizations, including the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES). As President of AIMBE (2018-2020), she led efforts to introduce a new nomination process focused on impact, increasing diversity among fellows, and launched the AIMBE Impact Awards. She also served as Chair of the College of Fellows and Conference Organizer for AIMBE’s 25th Anniversary Meeting. For BMES, Dr. Schmidt was on the Board of Directors (2011-2015) and Conference Chair for the 2010 Annual Meeting, which attracted over 3,000 attendees. She has chaired the BMES National Meetings and Diversity Committees, and is a recurring member of the Fellows Selection, Awards, and Nominations Committees.

Dr. Schmidt has over 28 years of experience in neural tissue engineering and wound healing, with more than $25M in funding, over 185 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters (H-index = 69; >25,000 citations), and 37 issued U.S. patents, and many more globally. She has trained over 18 post-doctoral engineers and scientists (67% women and underrepresented minorities), 45 graduate students (50% women and URM), and hundreds of undergraduates in her laboratory. Dr. Schmidt is also active in innovation, commercialization, and clinical translation. Her work is foundational to the Avance Nerve Repair graft from Axogen (with over 100,000 grafts implanted) and VersaWrap from her affiliated start-up, Alafair Biosciences (over 22,000 grafts implanted). Alafair Biosciences was listed on the 2023 Inc. 5000 of fastest-growing companies. She is Section Editor for Current Opinion in Biomedical Engineering, former Deputy Editor-in-Chief for Journal of Materials Chemistry B (2012-2016), and serves on the editorial boards of multiple journals, including Acta Biomaterialia and Journal of Neural Engineering.

Dr. Schmidt has received numerous prestigious awards and recognitions. She is an elected member of the National Academies of Engineering (NAE) and Medicine (NAM) and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), AIMBE, the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE), and the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering (FBSE/IUSBSE). She is also an inductee into the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame and a member of the Florida Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Dr. Schmidt’s other notable honors include AIMBE’s Pierre Galletti Award, the BMES Athanasiou Medal of Excellence in Translational Bioengineering, the Clemson Award for Applied Research from the Society for Biomaterials, the American Competitiveness and Innovation Fellowship from the National Science Foundation, and the Chairmen’s Distinguished Life Sciences Award from the Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.