Sheldon Weinbaum received his B.A.E. (Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1959, and his M.S. in Applied Physics and Ph.D. in Engineering from Harvard University in 1960 and 1963, respectively. He joined The City College of New York in 1967 where he is currently a CUNY Distinguished Professor of Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering. He continues to advise students and conduct research at the College, supported by five grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Professor Weinbaum was instrumental in establishing CCNY’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and the New York Center for Biomedical Engineering, a research consortium with eight area hospitals and other institutions. In 2001, the Department received a five-year, $2.5 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health to create a “national urban model for minority biomedical engineering education.” This grant was renewed in 2006 for five additional years and currently is the only grant of this nature being awarded by NIH.

Professor Weinbaum has published more than 200 full length journal papers plus numerous shorter communications and book chapters. His research has involved important collaborations with other investigators and institutions. His studies with Shu Chien have led to the discovery of the pore via which LDL crosses vascular endothelium and its subsequent spread in the subendothelial intima. His studies with Latif Jiji have led to a new bioheat equation to describe microvascular blood-tissue heat transfer (Weinbaum-Jiji equation) and a new model for heat transfer in muscle tissue. His studies with Roy Curry and Roger Adamson have led to a new view and major revision of the Starling hypothesis for microvascular fluid exchange. His studies with Steve Cowin and Mitch Schaffler on bone fluid flow have led to important new hypotheses as to how bone cells detect mechanical loading and transmit this to the intracellular cytoskelton. His studies with Alan Weinstein and Tong Wang have led to a new hypothesis for the role of brush border microvilli in glomerulotubular balance.

Three important recent contributions include a “bumper-car” model to explain the role of the endothelial glycocalyx in the cellular mechanotransduction of fluid shear stress , a new hypothesis for vulnerable plaque rupture and a new concept for a wingless jet plane that flies on a soft porous track a few centimeters above the earth’s surface. He has also examined a wide variety of basic fluid mechanics problems that have arisen in biologically motivated applications. Thirty-five of these papers have been published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

Professor Weinbaum holds the distinction of being just one of six living Americans elected to all three U.S. National Academies: Science, Engineering and Medicine. His other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship (2002), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ H.R. Lissner Award (1994) and Melville Medal (1996), and an NSF “Special Creativity Award” (1985).

He is the only engineer to have received a Guggenheim Fellowship in the category molecular and cellular biology.