Meenal Datta is the Jane Schoelch DeFlorio Collegiate Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and is an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Datta received her Ph.D. in chemical and biological engineering from Tufts University in 2018, after which she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, before starting her faculty position in 2021 (both with Dr. Rakesh K. Jain). Dr. Datta’s research focuses on the tumor microenvironment – which is biologically, chemically, electrically, and mechanically abnormal compared to healthy tissues – that drives disease progression and treatment resistance in incurable cancers. Dr. Datta specializes in multidisciplinary and mechanism-based preclinical approaches that reveal and reprogram abnormal tumor microenvironment.

As the director of the Tumor Immune Microenvironment & Mechanics (TIME) Lab at Notre Dame, Dr. Datta’s research explores immunomechanics and mechano-immunology in health and disease to discover novel biophysical mechanisms that can be targeted therapeutically to enhance treatment outcomes in cancer and other diseases. Dr. Datta’s lab also conducts science-in-space experiments (e.g., on the International Space Station) to test novel modeling and treatment approaches for cancer avatars in microgravity. This work was featured in a commercial played nationwide on NBC during the 2025 Notre Dame football season.

Dr. Datta has received numerous awards in support of her research including an NIH F31 predoctoral fellowship (2016), a single-recipient AACR postdoctoral fellowship (2019), an NIH K22 career transition award (2021), a junior faculty award from the Oak Ridge Associated Universities (2022), an NIH R35 award for early-stage investigators (2023), an AFOSR Young Investigator Program award (2025), and an NSF CAREER award (2026). Dr. Datta’s in-space research is supported by grants from NSF/CASIS (2024) and AFOSR Space Biosciences (2024, 2025). In 2024, Dr. Datta was awarded the Young Innovator Award in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering from the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES). In 2025, Prof. Datta was awarded the Rita Schaffer Young Investigator Award, the preeminent single-recipient award for early career faculty from BMES, as well as the Rising Star of Mechanical Engineering Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In 2026, Prof. Datta was awarded the Rising Star Junior Faculty Award from the Cell and Molecular Bioengineering Conference from BMES.