Jennifer A. Lewis

Timeline

1. 1986–1991

   Ceramics degrees at Illinois and MIT

   She earns a B.S. with high honors in ceramic engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1986. At MIT, she completes an Sc.D. in ceramic science under Michael J. Cima in 1991, with a dissertation on binder distribution processes in ceramic green tapes during thermolysis.

2. 1990–2007

   Professor and lab director at Illinois

   She joins the Illinois faculty as an assistant professor in 1990, with an affiliation at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, and becomes a full professor in 2003. After serving as interim director from 2006, she is named director of the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory in July 2007, while holding the Hans Thurnauer Professorship of Materials Science and Engineering.

3. 2013

   Wyss professor at Harvard

   In January 2013, she becomes the first Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and a core faculty member of the Wyss Institute. Her team releases a 3D-printed battery made from two electrode inks in 2013.

4. August 2016

   The octobot soft robot

   In August 2016, she and Robert Wood lead the Harvard team that describes the octobot in Nature, the first autonomous, untethered, entirely soft robot. The 3D-printed robot carries no electronics; a microfluidic logic circuit controls when its hydrogen peroxide fuel turns into gas that inflates its arms.

5. 2017–2019

   National academies of engineering and sciences

   She is elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2017 for materials and processes for 3D direct fabrication of multifunctional structures, and to the National Academy of Sciences in 2018. When the National Academy of Sciences inducts her in April 2019, she has co-founded two companies, Electroninks and Voxel8, that translate printable materials and methods from her lab.

6. 2025

   The NAS James Prize

   The National Academy of Sciences awards her the 2025 James Prize in Science and Technology Integration, which carries $50,000. Her lab prints electronic devices and microscale lithium-ion batteries with conductive inks, and builds perfusable 3D organ-on-chip models from human stem cell-derived organoids.

7. 2026

   Soft robots and a third academy

   In February 2026, graduate student Jackson Wilt and former postdoctoral researcher Natalie Larson in her lab report in Advanced Materials a rotational multimaterial 3D printing method for soft robots that bend in programmed directions when inflated. In October 2026, the National Academy of Medicine elects her for 3D bioprinting of soft and living materials and for techniques to create vascularized organoids and human tissues, making her a member of all three national academies.

8. As of October 2026

   Wyss professor and MRSEC director

   She is the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering, the Jianming Yu Professor of Arts and Sciences and Area Chair of Bioengineering at Harvard SEAS. At the Wyss Institute, she is a core faculty member and co-leads the 3D Organ Engineering Initiative, and she serves as NSF MRSEC Director at Harvard University.