Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, PhD is the Mikati Foundation   Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University, Director of the  Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering, and of the Stem Cell Imaging Core. She co-directs the NIH Tissue Engineering Resource Center and Columbia's Center for Craniofacial Regeneration.

The focus of her research is on engineering functional human tissues using stem cells, biomaterials and bioreactors, for application in regenerative medicine, stem cell research, and the study of tissue development and disease.

Dr Vunjak-Novakovic is extensively published (3 books, >300 journal articles) and highly cited (>15,000 citations, impact factor h=74 on the ISI Web of Science; ~25,000 citations, h=90 on Google Scholar), and has over 70 licensed, issued and pending patents. She founded two biotech companies, and is a frequent advisor to government and industry.

Dr Vunjak-Novakovic is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Biomedical Engineering Society, a founding Fellow of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Society, and a member of the New York Academy of Science, Academia Europaea, and the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. She was the first woman engineer to give the Director's lecture at the NIH. She received the Clemson Award for contributions to the literature on biomaterials, was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame, and was selected as one of the Foreign Policy 100 Global Thinkers for 2014.

She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, is the first woman at Columbia University to achieve this distinction. In addition, she was recently elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and to the National Academy of Inventors.