Kathleen Sienko is an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. She earned her Ph.D. in 2007 in Medical Engineering and Bioastronautics from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology, and holds an S.M. in Aeronautics & Astronautics from MIT and a B.S. in Materials Engineering from the University of Kentucky.
She is a co-founder and former co-director of the Center for Socially Engaged Design and directs the Sienko Research Group that develops and uses novel methodologies to create technological solutions that address pressing societal needs at the intersection of health care and engineering.
Professor Sienko has led efforts at the University of Michigan to incorporate the constraints of global health technologies within engineering design at the undergraduate and graduate levels and has led design ethnography field sites in India, Ghana, Uganda, Ethiopia and Nicaragua as the founder and co-director of the Global Health Design Initiative. She is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award and several teaching awards including the ASME Engineering Education Donald N. Zwiep Innovation in Education Award, UM Teaching Innovation Prize, UM Undergraduate Teaching Award, and UM Distinguished Professor Award. She is currently serving on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Board on Global Health.