Dr. Cato Laurencin is the Lillian T. Pratt Distinguished Professor and Chairman of Orthopaedic Surgery and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia (UVa). He received his Ph.D. degree in biochemical engineering/biotechnology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and an M.D. degree magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Laurencin is also a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine and world-renowned expert in shoulder and knee surgery. Dr. Laurencin received the Presidential Faculty Fellowship from President Bill Clinton in recognition of his efforts to bridge medicine and engineering.
Dr. Laurencin has also received numerous awards for his activities as a mentor and role model to underrepresented minority students and faculty including the William Grimes Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers which specifically recognizes a chemical engineer's outstanding achievements as a distinguished role model to minorities, the Virginia Engineering Foundation's Robert A. Bland award which recognizes extraordinary contribution to the field of UVa engineering by a faculty member whose contribution to the field is of particular significance to African-Americans, and the Commonwealth of Virginia's Workforce Diversity Award. Throughout his distinguished career, Dr. Laurencin has made deliberate steps to ensure his work impacts not only within the research community but also in the lives of the future generations of scientists and engineers that he personally mentors. His track record as an advocate for and mentor to underrepresented minority students, teachers and faculty is exemplary. Dr. Laurencin's programs indicate his passion for underrepresented students; from the Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) programs in which underrepresented minority undergraduate students spend a summer in the laboratory gaining exposure to the field of Biomedical Engineering, to the Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program that funds high school teachers to spend a summer learning about the field of Biomedical Engineering and then disseminate this information to their students. In the 18 years that Dr. Laurencin's laboratory has been in operation, over 85 underrepresented minority students at the undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate levels have undertaken research projects in the lab, with over 20 students completing graduate or post graduate degrees, award presentations and honors research theses. An integral part of the current and future mentoring activities of the nominee is the inclusion of underrepresented minority students at the undergraduate and graduate levels as well as students, post-docs and faculty across a wide spectrum of disciplines.
