Rate My Professor David Meaney

David F. Meaney is the Solomon R. Pollack Professor of Bioengineering and Vice Provost for Research at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, an MS and PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Penn. Meaney has taught at Penn since 1993. He served as Chair of the Department of Bioengineering from 2007 to 2019, during which the department rose to fourth in U.S. News rankings and tripled its per capita research funding to rank second among peers. From 2020 to 2025, as Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Strategic Initiatives in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, he led efforts in faculty wellness, development, facilities expansion—including planning 125,000 square feet of new research space—and interdisciplinary programs such as Penn Health-Tech, the Center for Precision Engineering for Health, the Center for Innovation and Precision Dentistry, and the Penn Advanced Research Computing Center.

Meaney’s research centers on traumatic brain injury, concussions, and neural mechanobiology, with over 150 publications garnering more than 22,000 citations. His laboratory provided experimental data that revised federal motor vehicle safety standards for head protection, saving approximately 3,500 lives and preventing over 200,000 head injuries annually in the United States. He co-founded Axonova Medical to commercialize neural tissue engineering and pioneered diagnostic technologies using brain-derived exosomes surpassing current biomarkers. Key publications include “Exogenous α-synuclein fibrils induce Lewy body pathology leading to synaptic dysfunction and neuron death” (2011), “Diffuse axonal injury in head trauma” (2003), “Biomechanics of concussion” (2011), and “Tissue-level thresholds for axonal damage in an experimental model of central nervous system white matter injury” (2000). His honors include the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Y.C. Fung Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2021 Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, 2019 Ford Motor Company Faculty Advising Award, and election as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the Biomedical Engineering Society. He has collaborated with the National Football League on concussion research and served on a Congressional Blue Ribbon Panel investigating roller coaster safety.