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Dr. Pruitt's research interests are in the area of micromachined sensors for system monitoring and modeling, development of novel processes and devices for measuring nanoscale mechanical behavior, and the analysis, design, and control of integrated electro-mechanical systems. She is particularly interested in the biomedical applications of nanofabricated devices with the goal of developing diagnostic tools, measurement and analysis systems, and reliable manufacture methods. MEMS devices and systems have the potential to revolutionize our healthcare and our energy production, as well as the way we work and the way we interact with engineered products and one another. Cross-disciplinary collaboration is essential to developing scalable and manufacturable solutions, especially for the medical and biological applications. The challenges include instrumenting and interfacing devices between the micro and macro scale, understanding the scaling properties of physical and material processes and finding ways to reproduce and propagate new technologies efficiently and repeatably at the macro-scale. Dr. Pruitt has a S.B. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Mechanical Engineering, an M.S. Stanford University in Manufacturing Systems Engineering and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Mechanical Engineering. | 