Professor and entrepreneur Mark Prausnitz has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), joining a membership that includes the nation’s most distinguished engineers. He is Georgia Tech’s 46th NAE member.

Prausnitz is the J. Erskine Love Jr. Chair of the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) and director of Georgia Tech’s Center for Drug Design, Development and Delivery. He’s also the only Georgia Tech faculty member recognized as both a Regents’ Professor and Regents’ Entrepreneur, the highest academic titles awarded by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents. He joins 105 new NAE members in the 2023 class along with 18 new international members.

Prausnitz’s research focuses on developing microneedle devices for minimally invasive drug and vaccine administration. He has launched eight companies, largely based on microneedle technology developed at Georgia Tech. They have raised more than $350 million in financing.

Three of the companies have created products that have gone to market, including microneedles for targeted injection into the eye. That technology was the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved drug therapy developed at Georgia Tech. Prausnitz’s technologies have been studied in more than 20 human clinical trials.