Princess Imoukhuede, Hunter and Dorothy Simpson Endowed Chair and professor in Bioengineering, received the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) Professional Impact Award for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The award recognizes an AIMBE fellow who has made significant contributions to the progress of underrepresented minorities in medical and biological engineering.
Imoukhuede is the first African American woman to earn a PhD in bioengineering at Caltech and has garnered numerous accolades in her academic journey. Notably, during her tenure as a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University, she was honored with the prestigious United Negro College Fund/Merck Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. Her contributions have been recognized with awards such as the 2021 Mid-Career Award from the Biomedical Engineering Society and the Faculty Early Career Development Program Award from the National Science Foundation. In 2020, she was acknowledged as one of the 1,000 “inspiring Black scientists” by Cell Mentor.
Imoukhuede’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion is expressed in many aspects of her work. In addition to her bench and computational research, she has been engaged in research that applies an intersectional woman-centered approach to investigate the experiences of Women of Color in engineering. Her research explored race and gender in STEM culture, shedding light on how Women of Color navigate unique challenges, yielding papers and conference talks and continued research by others
Imoukhuede was co-editor of the 86th volume of the Black History Bulletin in 2023, which was an exploration of “Black Genius.” She also co-founded and co-leads the Black Women in Biomedical Engineering Special Session during the BMES Annual meetings.