-Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
-Acting Chair, Biomedical Engineering Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Research:
The research interests and activities of Dr. DePaola's laboratory are in the broad area of biofluid dynamics, cell mechanics, cell and tissue engineering, microgravity research, cell bioreactor design, and bioelectromagnetism at the cell and molecular level.

Career Highlights:
Dr. DePaola received the BS in mechanical engineering from the Universidad Simon Bolivar, Caracas-Venezuela (1984), an MS in mechanical engineering and medical physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1987), and a PhD degree in medical engineering from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, 1991. She completed her postdoctoral training at Columbia University in the Artificial Organs Research Laboratory (1992), where she also held a position as an adjunct assistant professor of chemical engineering. In 1993 she moved to Northwestern University as an assistant professor of biomedical engineering. In 1994, she joined the biomedical engineering faculty at RPI.

A major emphasis of her research is on the identification of the physical mechanisms involved in vascular cell pathobiology leading to intimal thickening, atherosclerosis lesions, and the failure of vascular grafts. Tissue engineering efforts focus on the growth of functional three-dimensional cell constructs for vascular and bone tissue replacement. Dr. DePaola is a member of the Biomedical Engineering Society, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society for Cell Biology, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Society for Engineering Education.