Dean & Senior Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Education
Ph.D., California Institute of Technology, 1960
M.S.M.E., California Institute of Technology, 1955
B.M.E., Johns Hopkins University, 1954
Biography
Salvatore P. Sutera received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1954. After earning his master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1955, Sutera spent a year as a Fulbright fellow in Paris, France, followed by a year as a consulting engineer at the DuPont Corporation in Delaware. Sutera then returned to the California Institute of Technology to earn his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, which he received in 1960. From 1960 to 1968, Sutera was on the faculty at Brown University, serving as the executive officer of the Division of Engineering from 1966 to 1968.
Sutera joined the Washington University faculty as a professor and chair of mechanical engineering in 1968. Over the past 40 years, he has been highly engaged in the school, serving in a wide variety of faculty and administrative positions. Sutera served as chair of the mechanical engineering department for twenty-five years; he was chair from 1968 to 1982, and again from 1985 to 1996. He also served as director of the interdepartmental program in biomedical engineering and as the founding chair of the biomedical engineering department from its creation in 1996 until 1997. Sutera was installed as the first Spencer T. Olin Professor of Engineering and Applied Science in March 1997 – a distinction he held until 2004 when he became a senior professor of biomedical engineering. In April 2008, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton appointed Sutera interim dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Sutera has been active throughout his career in numerous professional societies, among them the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society for Engineering Education, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the North American Society of Biorheology. He also has served as past president of St. Louis-Lyon Sister Cities Inc., and he is currently a director of the Italian Club of St. Louis.
Research
With continuously sponsored research for more than 30 years by the National Institutes of Health, Sutera has long been recognized for his work in biomedical engineering, particularly with the application of fluid dynamics to problems of blood circulation. He and his students have made many contributions to the understanding of blood flow in the microcirculation, flow-induced trauma to blood in artificial organs, and the mechanical properties of the red blood cell in health and disease. His publications include more than 90 technical papers and two book chapters.