Philip LeDuc (Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University; post-doctoral fellow, Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School) is the William J. Brown Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Carnegie Mellon University with appointments in Biological Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Computational Biology. He has received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Beckman Foundation Young Investigators Award, while also being selected as a faculty member for the Sloan Foundation minority Ph.D. Program. In his lab, he works at the intersection of mechanical engineering and biology by envisioning cells and molecules as systems that can be investigated with some of the same fundamental approaches used on machines such as planes and automobiles looking for unifying principles. These systems range from mammalian cells to microorganisms to developmental biology systems and apply principles from mechanical engineering fields to understand how these principles may apply across diverse nature-based systems. He has also been involved with many philanthropic organizations including raising money for non-profit organizations and mission trips to Africa and Armenia.