Leadership & Staff

LEADERSHIP

In addition to holding the WRF Professorship in Bioengineering, Pun is an Adjunct Professor of Chemical Engineering and an Associate Director of the Resuscitation Engineering Science Unit (RESCU) at the UW. She is a fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and has been recognized with MIT Technology Review’s “Top Young Innovators” designation, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and as an AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassador. She was also recognized with the UW’s Marsha Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award for her dedicated mentoring of students. She currently serves as an Associate Editor for ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering. Pun also served as the co-chair of the College’s strategic plan steering committee in 2020-21.  

Pun received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology. She also worked as a senior scientist at Insert Therapeutics/Calando Pharmaceuticals developing polymeric drug delivery systems before joining the Department of Bioengineering. Her current research focuses on biomaterial applications in drug delivery and gene and cell therapy. 

Cole A. DeForest is a formally-trained chemical engineer with additional expertise in material science, organic synthesis, polymer chemistry, bioengineering, biophysics, protein engineering, and photochemistry. He is currently the Weyerhaeuser Endowed Professor and Associate Professor in the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering at the University of Washington, and a Core Faculty Member of the Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine. His research establishes multidisciplinary methodologies to mimic, exploit, and quantify biology’s 4D complexity, ultimately paving the way to new therapeutic targets and treatments of disease through a fundamentally transformed knowledge of basic cell physiology.

Scientific Advisory Council

James Carothers
Chemical Engineering
Bioengineering

Corie Cobb
Mechanical Engineering
Human Centered Design & Engineering

David Ginger
Chemistry

Neil King
Biochemistry

Xiaodong Xu
Physics

STAFF