Shankar Sundaram currently serves as the Director for the Center for Bioengineering at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  In this capacity, he leads the laboratory’s Bioengineering strategy and technology development activities that address critical challenges in health and biosecurity. He also serves on the LLNL leadership team that oversees lab programs in Biosciences and Bioengineering. He co-leads a lab initiative that integrates AI/computational approaches and engineered biological systems to enable new capabilities in predicting and harnessing biology. Particular focus areas for the LLNL group include accelerated design of biological countermeasures, advanced platforms for complex in-vitro biological and biomanufacturing systems and predictive, multimodal health analytics.

Prior to LLNL, he was the Bioengineering Center Director at Draper Laboratory where he led the laboratory’s strategy and initiatives in the areas of neuroengineering and human microsystem development. Prior to Draper, he was in the private sector leading efforts on the development of modeling and design software for physiology as well microfluidic/medical devices that interfaced with biology.

Throughout his career, he has focused on trans-disciplinary, multi-institutional partnerships driving an open innovation model. He is a named inventor on several patents and published in the scientific literature in these research areas. He received a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University and a Bachelor’s degree, also in Chemical Engineering, from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras