Cullen Buie

Cullen is the Mitsui Career Development Chair and Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. Cullen was born in St. Louis, MO and grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio. As a student at Shaker Heights High School he was involved in sports (football and basketball) and several organizations to improve race relations within the community. He then attended The Ohio State University where he received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (2003). After OSU, Cullen attended Stanford University as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and obtained his M.S. (2005) and Ph.D. (2009) in Mechanical Engineering. Cullen's Ph.D. research involved the study of microfluidic pumps to manage liquid water in proton exchange membrane fuel cells. He and his wife, Donielle, met at Stanford in 2004 while she was completing her Master's degree. Prior to joining MIT Cullen spent a year at UC Berkeley working with Professor Liwei Lin and Professor John Coates as a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow. At MIT his laboratory explores fundamentals of electrokinetic phenomena for application in materials science and microbiology. His research is applicable to a diverse array of problems, from antibiofouling surfaces and biofuels to energy storage and bacterial infections. Cullen is the recipient of numerous awards for his research and service including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2012). In his spare time Cullen enjoys changing his son Jeremiah's diapers and watching college football (particularly, THE Ohio State University). He also enjoys stupid movies (e.g. Talladega Nights) and eating meat...lots and lots of meat.

Connect with Cullen via email at crb@mit.edu.