C. Wyatt Shields IV

Charles Wyatt Shields IV is an American biomedical engineer and the Austin Endowed Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. His research involves the design of colloidal and microscale particles for applications in drug delivery and biosensing.

Education C. Wyatt Shields IV received a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia in 2011. While there, he performed undergraduate research with Jeffrey Saucerman and William Walker. He continued his education and research with Gabriel López as a graduate student in Biomedical Engineering at Duke University where he obtained his PhD in 2016. During his graduate studies, Shields studied magnetic and acoustic methods for isolation and analysis of cells.

Career

Shields continued his academic career as a postdoctoral associate in chemical and biological engineering at North Carolina State University where he worked with Orlin D. Velev in 2017. He also worked as a postdoctoral fellow in bioengineering at Harvard University with Samir Mitragotri in 2018.

Shields became an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2020 in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering with affiliations in the Biomedical Engineering Program, Materials Science and Engineering Program, Robotics Program, and University of Colorado Cancer Center. Shields' research focuses on understanding how stimuli-responsive particles behave in physiological settings and how to control their motion and function for biological applications. developing multifunctional magnetic microrobots, and using acoustically responsive particles for capture and purification of disease biomarkers. Shields' early career has resulted in 60 peer-reviewed articles as of early 2025.

Shields' career also focuses on scientific outreach and mentorship. His group has partnered with a local high school on Senior Design engineering projects and launching a Reverse Science Fair. Shields was recognized for his mentorship of students of diverse and underrepresented backgrounds while working under Dr. Gabriel López in 2016.

Awards and honors

At the University of Colorado Boulder, Shields has received several national research awards, including a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award, Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Program award, Pew Biomedical Scholars award, Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, and an NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA). Additionally, he was awarded with the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award in 2024.