Lili He Named Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors 2026 Class
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Three University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty members—Lili He, professor and department head of the College of Natural Sciences's Department of Food Science; Govindarajan Srimathveeravalli, associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Riccio College of Engineering and director of the Center for Personalized Health Monitoring in the Institute for Applied Life Sciences; and VP Nguyen, assistant professor in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences—have been named Senior Members of the 2026 class of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). The Senior Member recognition program was created to recognize active faculty, scientists, and administrators at NAI member institutions who have successfully produced, patented, and commercialized technologies that have brought, or aspire to bring, real impact on the welfare of society and economic progress.
“UMass Amherst is committed to fostering an innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem that helps connect cutting-edge research to real-world applications, bringing revolutionary solutions to life for our global community,” says Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs. “I am proud of our three new Senior Members of the National Academy of Inventors and celebrate their visionary work, which spans contributions across the intellectual landscape from food science, computer science, and biomedical engineering.”
Lili He
He, professor and food science department head, serendipitously stumbled upon her first of seven patents when one of her students accidentally discovered that the chemical coating He’s lab was working on had an unexpected property. He had been awarded a grant from the USDA to help develop a method and technology for quickly and accurately quantifying how many bacteria are in food—one of the core problems in food science. The team developed a hypothesis that involved a complex, multi-step protocol, but it turned out that the chemical coating itself eliminated all the intermediate, and costly, steps.
That coating is now the backbone of a patent for BactiSee, a rapid surface-bacteria detection system for food processing, pharmaceutical, and healthcare environments. He has also launched a startup, HertZ Innovation Tech, to bring BactiSee to market with her postdoc Yuzhen Zhang.
“I always tell my students, ‘if you see something unexpected in your experiment, you need to keep looking at it, because you might have just discovered something new,’” says He. “You have to follow your curiosity.”
But, He points out, inventions require more than curiosity—they require patents. “Scientists are great at research,” she says, “but then they don’t protect their work with patents. This is something UMass Amherst does very well, and our Technology Transfer Office is a crucial resource in helping to move research out of the lab and into the public, where it can do the most good.”
He points to UMass Amherst’s wider culture of collegiality as indispensable to her success. The Technology Transfer Office, the Institute for Applied Life Sciences, where He directs the Raman, IR and XRF Core Facility, as well as the Berthiaume Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship have all helped to create an ecosystem of entrepreneurship supportive of invention. UMass Dining, University Health Services, and Environmental Health & Safety were early BactiSee adopters and crucial partners in helping to translate He’s research into an applicable invention.
This year’s class of NAI Senior Members is the largest to date, hailing from 82 NAI member institutions across the globe and collectively holding more than 2,000 U.S. patents. A full list of the 2026 Class of Senior Members is available here.
“UMass Amherst’s inductees in the NAI Class of 2026 Senior Members join a distinguished group of over 700 scientists and researchers from around the world,” says Sundar Krishnamurty, vice provost for innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity. “This honor recognizes their significant contributions to our innovation ecosystem as evidenced by their success in securing patents and bringing to life technologies that impact the welfare of our society.”
“This year’s Senior Member Class is a truly impressive cohort. These innovators come from a variety of fields and disciplines, translating their technologies into tangible impact,” said Paul R. Sanberg, FNAI, president of NAI. “I commend them on their incredible pursuits and I’m honored to welcome them to the Academy.”
Today, there are 946 Senior Members holding more than 11,000 U.S. patents.
The 2026 class of Senior Members will be honored during the Senior Member Induction Ceremony at NAI’s 15th Annual Conference taking place June 1-4 in Los Angeles.
Learn more: Daily Hampshire Gazette
This story was originally published by the UMass News Office.