Andrew Harris joined the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering as an Assistant Professor in 2021. For his PhD, which he earned at University College London working in Professor Guillaume Charras’s lab, Dr. Harris focused on using precision tools such as Atomic Force Microscopy to characterize the mechanical properties of single cells and simple tissues. Intrigued by the origins of cell and tissue mechanics, he then joined Professor Daniel Fletcher’s lab at the University of California Berkeley as an EMBO and HFSP postdoctoral fellow.

His current research interests focus on how subcellular networks of polymers and proteins endow cells and tissues with the mechanical characteristics that are critical to their physiological function. This interdisciplinary research involves developing new tools and techniques to measure cellular mechanical properties, with a view toward understanding the origins of disease and developing new therapeutic approaches.