Who We Are: Beth Pruitt

2010 Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award – Underwritten by Microsoft

Dr. Beth Pruitt did her BS at MIT and MS and PhD at Stanford. She worked on Piezoresistive Cantilevers For Characterizing Thin-Film Gold Electrical Contacts during her PhD. During her post-doc, Dr. Pruitt worked on nanostencils and polymer MEMS. She joined the Stanford Mechanical Engineering faculty in Fall 2003 and started the Stanford Microsystems Lab.

Dr. Pruitt’s research projects include the development of novel processes and micromachined sensors and actuators for measuring micro-mechanical behavior, the analysis, design, and control of integrated electro-mechanical systems., and biomedical applications of nanofabricated devices with the goal of developing integrated MEMS-biological test platforms, precise measurement and analysis systems, and reliable manufacture methods. Her research addresses instrumentation and interfaces between the micro and macro scale, understanding the scaling properties of physical and material processes, and reproducing and propagating new technologies efficiently and robustly.

Dr. Pruitt has received an NSF CAREER award, and DARPA YFA award. Current lab support is comprised of NSF, NIH, DARPA, CIRM and Stanford Bio-X grants. Prior to her Ph.D., Dr. Pruitt was an officer in the U.S. Navy, serving first at NAVSEA08, the engineering headquarters of the Navy nuclear program, then as a Systems Engineering instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy, where she also taught offshore sailing.