Susan Daniel

Susan Daniel is an American chemical engineer who is a Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University. Her research considers membrane biophysics and bioelectronic devices. During the COVID-19 pandemic Daniel used bioelectronic devices to develop COVID-19 disease drugs.

Early life and education Daniel was born in suburban Philadelphia. Her father was an immigrant from Germany, who relocated to Pennsylvania on leaving Europe. She wondered whether she might be interested in research, and visited the office of Manoj Chaudhury. He asked her to study the movement of liquid droplets on various surfaces with different surface tension. Remarkably, her first journey into research ended up published in Science, before she had even earned her master's degree. She remained at Lehigh University for her doctoral research, continuing to study the motion of liquid droplets on surfaces with different wettabilities. The devices she developed allowed the precise mixing of droplets as well as thermosensitive reactions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Daniel worked with Róisín Owens, a biochemist she met whilst a visiting scholar at the École nationale supérieure des mines de Saint-Étienne, on devices that allowed the rapid testing of potential COVID-19 drugs. Daniel used membrane fusion to identify a specific targets for anti-viral drugs. To continue her studies of coronaviruses, she was awarded seed-funding from the Office of the Vice Provost for Research (OVPR).

Academic service Daniel is involved with various initiatives to promote women in science. On arriving at Cornell University she became interested in the women's engineering group, and is a member of Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) at Cornell. 2017 College of Engineering's Research Excellence Award 2020 Elected Chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Bioanalytical Sensors 2020 Cornell University College of Engineering Senior Faculty Champion Award

Selected publications