Michael J. Cima, the co-director of the Innovation Initiative and associate dean of innovation at MIT’s School of Engineering, works with colleagues in the School of Engineering and across all five schools in developing the next generation of innovators.

A professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cima, the David H. Koch Professor of Engineering, has an appointment at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. He studied chemistry and chemical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and joined the MIT faculty in 1986. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2011 and to the National Academy of Inventors in 2016.

Cima is a recognized expert in the field of materials processing. He is actively involved in materials and engineered systems for improvements in human health, such as treatments for cancer, metabolic diseases, trauma, and urological disorders. He is also a co-inventor of MIT’s three-dimensional printing process, co-founder of four companies in the health-technologies field, and advisor to the MIT Glass Lab.

As co-director of the MIT Innovation Initiative, Cima helps to equip the MIT community and its partners to move powerful ideas from conception to impact. Cima’s passion for both invention and the advancement of educational opportunities is also signaled by his ongoing commitment as faculty director of the Lemelson-MIT Program, which recognizes outstanding inventors, encourages sustainable new solutions to real-world problems, and enables and inspires young people to pursue creative lives and careers through invention.