Education

  • Ph.D. (Applied Physics), Stanford University, 2002
  • M.S. (Applied Physics), Stanford University, 2000
  • B.A. (Physics and Mathematics), Johns Hopkins University, 1996

Teaching Interests

Sulchek's teaching interests center on experiential learning, engineering design, and learning by building. Through Capstone Design, Idea-to-Prototype (I2P), and undergraduate research, he helps students translate their engineering knowledge and ideas into prototypes of products for real-world impact. He integrates a problem finding and customer discovery framework with the design process so students learn to identify important problems, understand user needs, and iteratively develop and test solutions.

Research Interests

Sulchek's research interests center on understanding and manipulating the mechanical behavior of biological systems by developing new microscale technologies. He integrates biomechanics, microfluidics, cell engineering, and genomic approaches to study cellular function and create enabling technologies for cell analysis, intracellular delivery, and biomanufacturing. A central goal of his research is to translate fundamental discoveries into scalable technologies that address important challenges in human health.

Recent Publications 

  1. W. Xu#, R. Mezencev, B.K. Kim*, L.J. Wang, J. McDonald, and T. Sulchek, “Cell stiffness is a biomarker of the metastatic potential of ovarian cancer cells” PLoS One 7(10): e46609 (2012).
  2. Gonghao Wang#, Kaci Crawford*, Cory Turbyfield*, Wilbur Lam, Alexander Alexeev, Todd Sulchek, “Microfluidic cellular enrichment and separation through differences in viscoelastic deformation” Lab on a Chip 15, 532-540 (2015).
  3. A. Haider#, D. Potter#, T. Sulchek, “Enhanced stochastic fluctuations to measure steep adhesive energy landscapes” PNAS (2016).
  4. Katherine M. Young#, Congmin Xu, Kelly Ahkee*, Roman Mezencev, Steven Swingle#, Tong Yu#, Ava Paikeday*, Cathy Kim*, John McDonald, Peng Qiu, and Todd Sulchek “Correlating mechanical and gene expression data on the single cell level to investigate metastasis” iScience 26 (4), (2023).
  5. Tong Yu#, Navdeep Jhita, Peter Shankles#, Andrew Fedanov, Noah Kramer*, Sunil S Raikar, Todd Sulchek, “Development of a microfluidic cell transfection device into gene-edited CAR T cell manufacturing workflow” Lab on a Chip 23, (22) 4804-4820 (2023).
Sulchek BioMEMS and Biometrics Lab
Google Scholar