Zoubeida Ounaies is one of 10 Penn State faculty members named distinguished professors in 2025. Credit: Jeff Xu
Zoubeida Ounaies named distinguished professor for outstanding research achievements
Feb 17, 2025
Editor’s note: A version of this news story first appeared on Penn State News.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State’s Office of Faculty Affairs recently named Zoubeida Ounaies, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Convergence Center for Living Multifunctional Material Systems, a distinguished professor.
The distinguished professor or distinguished librarian title recognizes outstanding academic contribution to the University. This special academic title is bestowed upon a limited number of professors who are leaders in their fields of research or creative activity, and have demonstrated significant accomplishments with respect to teaching, research, creative activity and service.
“Professor Ounaies is an acknowledged leader in the field of responsive polymer materials and a trailblazer in the new field of living engineered materials,” said Mary Frecker, department head of mechanical engineering, Riess Chair of Engineering and director of the Penn State Center for Biodevices. “Her dedication to genuine interdisciplinarity mentorship has had a tremendously positive impact on others.”
Ounaies is one of 10 faculty members from across Penn State’s academic colleges recognized as a distinguished professor in 2025. She is a prolific researcher whose work focuses on the development of sustainable polymer-based materials with unique mechanical, electrical, magnetic and coupled properties. Ounaies has made discoveries that resulted in “expanding the space of available responsive materials from synthetic polymers to hybrid-, bio- and nano-composites.” In recent years, she has transitioned her work toward the next revolution in smart materials — living engineered materials — and currently directs the Convergence Center for Living Multifunctional Material Systems. She has received numerous awards, including the Outstanding International Research Award from Penn State Global and the Active Materials and Soft Mechatronics Academic Award.
“Professor Ounaies has contributed invaluable work to the interdisciplinary research mission at the Materials Research Institute,” said Clive Randall, Evan Pugh University Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and director of the Materials Research Institute. “The time I have spent collaborating with her at the institute has been inspiring, and her elevation to distinguished professor is well-deserved.”
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