Jennifer Hartt Elisseeff (MCS 1994)

2003 Outstanding Recent Alumni Award

For Jennifer Hartt Elisseeff, blending fields has long been a theme in her career in research, dating back to her time as a student at the Mellon College of Science’s Department of Chemistry.

"I think it's a unique environment," said Elisseeff of her undergraduate experience at MCS. "It ended up being a great fit and allowed me to do a couple different things, and bridge a couple different fields."

As an undergraduate, Elisseeff worked in the lab of Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, J.C. Warner University Professor of Natural Sciences and director of the Center for Macromolecular Engineering, on polymer research.

"I was actually interested in both biology and physics, and chemistry was almost a little bit of a middle of the road," Elisseeff said of how she ended up in the Department of Chemistry.

Building on the work she started at Carnegie Mellon University, Elisseeff went on to earn a Ph.D. in medical engineering from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, where her dissertation focused on using polymer-based hydrogels for regenerating cartilage in the body.