UMass Amherst faculty members Ashish Kulkarni and Vincent Rotello have been inducted into the 2026 class of the College of Fellows for the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). 

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Among the highest professional distinctions accorded to medical and biological engineers, membership in the AIMBE College of Fellows honors those who have made outstanding contributions to engineering and medicine research, practice, or education and to the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of medical and biological engineering or developing/implementing innovative approaches to bioengineering education. AIMBE Fellows represent more than 35 countries and are employed in academia, industry, clinical practice and government, and those elected represent the top 2% of engineers in their respective fields.

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Kulkarni, associate professor and Edward S. Price Faculty Fellow of chemical and biomolecular engineering in the Riccio College of Engineering, was accepted into the College of Fellows “in recognition of pioneering contributions to immunoengineering, drug delivery and cancer therapy, and for development of computationally designed nanomaterials,” according to AIMBE.

Within the last few years, Kulkarni has received the inaugural Glass Family Faculty Innovation Fellowship to develop a sprayable psoriasis treatment, the AIChE Langer Prize for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Excellence for detecting ovarian cancer, and an Institute of Diversity Sciences seed grant to develop strategies to bypass cancer’s multidrug resistance. He was elected as a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and selected as a UMass Amherst Spotlight Scholar. He has co-founded two start-up companies based on his cancer treatment and diagnostic research. 

“I am deeply honored by this recognition from AIMBE, which reflects the outstanding efforts of the students and trainees in my lab and our shared commitment to advancing engineering-driven therapeutic and diagnostic approaches for cancer,” Kulkarni says.

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Rotello, Charles A. Goessmann Professor of chemistry and a University Distinguished Professor in the College of Natural Sciences, was extended membership to the College of Fellows “for transformative contributions to nanomedicine and biomedical engineering, pioneering therapeutic nanoparticles, and developing innovative delivery systems for human health applications,” according to the institute.

“The lab has worked hard to move our work towards translational nanomedicine, and this award is a great acknowledgement of this effort,” Rotello says.

He has been named one of the most highly cited researchers and a top researcher by ScholarGPS in 2026 and Research.com in 2024. He also has received the Cope Scholar Award in 2023 from the American Chemical Society for his work building Lego-like molecules at the nanoscale that have important applications in health care and environmental delivery, imaging, diagnostics and nanotoxicology.  He was recently selected as the editor in chief for the journal Cambridge Materials: Health.

Kulkarni and Rotello were inducted along with 175 colleagues during a formal induction ceremony held during the AIMBE annual event in Arlington, Virginia, on April 13. 

More information about the institute and the College of Fellows can be found at AIMBE.org.