The National Science Foundation has appointed Susan Margulies, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, to lead the agency's engineering directorate, effective Aug. 16.
She will be the first biomedical engineer to serve as head of the directorate that aims to help drive innovation through partnerships, grants and training and development initiatives, NSF said Thursday.
Margulies, who is also chair of the Georgia Tech and Emory's Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, is known for her research work about traumatic brain injury in children and ventilator-induced lung injury.
In her next role, she will aim to help the agency expand the country's engineering workforce through integrated national and international approaches.
“We can see the nation is turning to NSF to address some of the most pressing challenges facing science and engineering,” Margulies said.
“To do that, we must forge partnerships with industry, agencies, foundations, institutions of higher learning, communities, and countries.”