Mariah Hahn
Mariah Somer Hahn is an American chemical engineer. She is a professor of biomedical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Hahn is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and Biomedical Engineering Society
Early life and education
Hahn earned her Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998 and received her Master's degree in electrical engineering at Stanford University in 2001. She then enrolled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her PhD in vocal fold regeneration. Hahn trained under Robert S. Langer during her PhD and worked with Jennifer L. West in her postdoctoral studies at Rice University. While at MIT, Hahn worked with Langer to help develop vocal cords for Julie Andrews, who had her vocal cords damaged by a surgery.Career
Hahn joined the department of chemical engineering at Texas A&M University in 2005 as an assistant professor. In this role, she continued to develop vocal fold regeneration through tissue engineering. Hahn received a 2010 National Science Foundation CAREER Award to support her research integrating collagen-mimetic protein–based gels with gene silencing methods. Hahn left Texas A&M in 2012 and joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as an associate professor.While at RPI, Hahn established the Hahn Tissue Lab, which cultivates cells from human and animal tissue for use in vocal fold repair. She collaborated with other scientists to develop a shape memory polymer coated in a bioactive polydopamine that could be used to replace skull bone lost to injury, surgery, or birth defect. Outside of her lab, Hahn was promoted to Full Professor in 2015 and appointed to the editorial board of the journal Scientific Reports. She was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2016 for her "pioneering work on biomaterials for vocal cord reconstruction and cell adhseion studies leading to low thrombogenicity materials."
Hahn was elected a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society in 2022 for her "achievements in soft tissue regeneration and inflammatory disease modeling."