Education

1999  Dr. rer. nat. (Ph.D.), Physics, Free University Berlin (Germany)

1996  Diploma, Physics, Technical University Berlin (Germany)

1993  Prediploma, Physics, Technical University Clausthal (Germany)        

Professional Experience

2009 - now     Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering,  Columbia University

2005 - 2009    Assistant Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Florida

2002 – 2005    Research Assistant Professor, Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington 

2000-2002       Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington  

Honors and Awards

2012  Distinguished Faculty, 11^th International Summer School on Biocomplexity from Gene to Systems, Istanbul, Turkey

2010  Invited Speaker, US Frontiers of Engineering Meeting 2010

2009  Invitation to the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative “Synthetic Biology” 

2007  Distinguished Mentor Award of the UF/HHMI “Science for Life” program

2006 NSF Career Award

2005  Philip Morris Forschungspreis (together with Viola Vogel)

2000  Wolfgang-Paul-Award of the German Society for Mass Spectrometry

2000  Feodor Lynen postdoctoral fellowship of the A. von Humboldt foundation

1996  Erwin-Stephan-Award of the Technical University Berlin

Grant Support

We gratefully acknowledge past and current support from:

the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation,

the DARPA Defense Science Office,

the DOD Defense Threat Reduction Agency,

the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences,

the NSF Biomaterials program,

the NSF Nanobiomechanics program, 

the Office of Naval Research,

the Volkswagen Foundation.

Selected RECENT Publications

51. H. Hess*: "Engineering applications of biomolecular motors", Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering, 13, 429-450 (2011)

50. H. Hess* and E.L.P. Dumont: "Fatigue failure and molecular machine design", Small, 7(12), 1619-1623 (2011)

42. A. Agarwal and H. Hess*:”Biomolecular motors at the intersection of nanotechnology and polymer science”, Progress in Polymer Science, 35, 252-277 (2010) 

40. George D. Bachand, Henry Hess*, Banahalli Ratna, Peter Satir and Viola Vogel: "Smart dust biosensors powered by biomolecular motors", Lab on a Chip, 9(12), 1661-1666 (2009) 

37. T. Fischer, A. Agarwal and H. Hess: "A smart dust biosensor powered by kinesin motors", Nature Nanotechnology, 4, 162-166 (2009)

24. H. Hess: "Self-assembly driven by biomolecular motors", Soft Matter, 2, 669 - 677 (2006)

23. H. Hess: "Biomolecular motor-powered devices", Science 312, 861 (2006), invited perspective

5. H. Hess, J. Clemmens, D. Qin, J. Howard, and V. Vogel*: "Light-Controlled Molecular Shuttles Made from Motor Proteins Carrying Cargo on Engineered Surfaces", Nano Letters, 1 (5), 235-239 (2001)

4. H. Hess, K.R. Asmis, T. Leisner, and L. Wöste*: "Vibrational wave packet dynamics in the silver tetramer probed by charge-reversal femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy", Eur. Phys. J. D, 16, 145-149 (2001)

2. H. Hess, D. S. Larsen, A. A. Scheidemann*: "Measurement of pick-up cross-sections of 4He clusters: polar versus non-polar molecules", Phil. Mag. B, 79, 1437-1444 (1999)  

Engineering at the molecular scale, in particular the design of active nanosystems incorporating biomolecular motors, the study of active self-assembly, and the investigation of protein-resistant polymer coatings.