Adela Ben-Yakar

Adela Ben-Yakar is a distinguished Engineering professor at the University of Texas at Austin, serving as Professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, where she holds the Cockrell Family Chair in Engineering #14. She is also the Harry Jr. L. Kent Endowed Professor jointly in the departments of biomedical engineering, mechanical engineering, and electrical and computer engineering, as well as the Mr. N. Doug Williams Memorial Centennial Fellow in Engineering. Joining the faculty in 2004, she coordinates the Thermal/Fluid Systems area in Mechanical Engineering and serves on graduate studies committees in electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering. Ben-Yakar earned her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 2000, an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in 1995, and a B.Sc. (Cum Laude) in Aerospace Engineering from the same institution in 1992. She completed postdoctoral research at Stanford University and Harvard University in applied physics.

Her Engineering research centers on ultrafast laser microsurgery and nonlinear imaging for image-guided clinical applications addressing spinal decompression, scarred vocal folds, and cervical cancer; high-throughput opto-fluidic systems utilizing organoids and C. elegans for drug discovery, toxicity testing, nerve regeneration, and neurodegenerative diseases; and ultrafast imaging technologies for 3D imaging flow cytometry and kHz volumetric imaging of brain function with LEAD microscopy. She has secured more than $26 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, published over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles with more than 8,200 citations, holds 8 issued patents and 7 pending, and has delivered over 120 plenary and invited talks at major conferences worldwide. As co-founder and CEO of vivoVerse, she advances high-throughput microfluidic imaging platforms integrated with AI-enabled data analytics for drug and chemical testing. Key honors include Fellow of SPIE, Optica, and AIMBE (2019), NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award (2011), NSF CAREER Award (2010), Human Frontier Science Program Award (2012), Endowed Cockrell Family Chair in Engineering (2025), Fulbright Scholarship, and Zonta Amelia Earhart Award.

Professional Email: ben-yakar@mail.utexas.edu