Carnegie Mellon University

Robert Tilton

Dr. Robert D. Tilton

Chevron Professor
Professor, Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering

Address
Doherty Hall 2100B
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Education

  • B.Ch.E., University of Delaware, 1986
  • M.S., Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, 1987
  • Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, 1991

Bio

A member of the faculty since 1992, Professor Robert Tilton holds a joint appointment in the Department of Chemical Engineering and in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and serves as Director of the Center for Complex Fluids Engineering. He earned the B.Ch.E. from the University of Delaware in 1986, and the M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University in 1987 and 1991, respectively. His Ph.D. research was supervised by Professors Alice Gast and Channing Robertson and was recognized by the 1993 Victor K. LaMer Award for Outstanding Graduate Research in Colloid and Surface Chemistry from the American Chemical Society. Following his Ph.D. he conducted postdoctoral research in the Department of Physical Chemistry at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.  He is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Professor Tilton has served as a regular member of the NIH Nanotechnology Study Section and as Scientific Council to CODIRECT, the Institute Excellence Centre for Controlled Release and Delivery at the Institute for Surface Chemistry in Stockholm. He has held several leadership positions in the American Chemical Society Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry, including Victor K. LaMer Award Committee Chair, Symposium Committee Chair, and Division Vice-Chair, Chair-Elect and Chair. He now serves as Councilor. In 2001 he co-chaired the ACS Colloid and Surface Science Symposium at Carnegie Mellon University and will co-chair the symposium on campus again in 2015.

Research

Professor Tilton's group investigates phenomena in the spaces where fundamental nanoscale colloid science intersects with biomedical or environmental systems. His group is developing surfactant-based self-dispersing aerosolized carriers for enhanced drug delivery in obstructed lungs, in parallel with fundamental studies of adsorption and surface tension driven flows in complex fluids. His group also addresses the physical and toxicological interaction of engineered nanomaterials with microbial communities in relation to the environmental implications of nanotechnology, in parallel with fundamental studies of the thermodynamic and mechanical properties of nanostructured materials and interfaces. The common thread linking all projects in the group is the controlling role played by fundamental colloidal and interfacial phenomena. Professor Tilton is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and a Fellow of the American Chemical Society. 

Research Interests: nanoparticle probes; nanoparticle-cell interactions; environmental effects of nanoparticles; surfactant-based carriers for pulmonary drug delivery; protein adsorption and protein drug delivery; cell sorting technologies

  

Awards and Recognition

  • Editor, Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects

  • Fellow of the American Chemical Society

  • Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering

 

  • NSF Career Award

  • Victor K. La Mer Award for Outstanding Graduate Research in Colloid and Surface Chemistry (American Chemical Society Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry)