Rate My Professor Sarah Cartmell

Sarah Cartmell is Professor of Bioengineering in the Department of Materials at The University of Manchester, where she heads the department and serves as Vice Dean and Head of the School of Engineering. She obtained her B.Eng. in Materials Science with Clinical Engineering from the University of Liverpool in 1996 and her Ph.D. in Clinical Engineering from the same institution in 2000, with a thesis on a degradable bioactive glass studied in vitro and in vivo. After her doctorate, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology for two years. In 2002, she joined Keele University as a postdoctoral researcher, advancing to Lecturer in 2004 and Senior Lecturer in orthopaedic tissue engineering in 2008. She joined The University of Manchester in 2010 as Reader in Biomaterials and was promoted to full Professor of Bioengineering in 2014. Cartmell is also Programme Director for the Advanced Biomedical Materials Centre for Doctoral Training, UK Biomedical Materials champion for the Henry Royce Institute, and an elected Senate member.

Her research specializations include bioengineering applications such as electrical stimulating regimes to influence stem cell proliferation and differentiation for orthopaedic tissue engineering, including bone, tendon, ligament repair, and wound care models. She leads the Biomaterials Research Group, focusing on bioreactors, mechanical forces, CT imaging, and novel materials like conductive polymers and piezoelectric films to enhance osteogenic differentiation. As Principal Investigator, she has secured grants exceeding £2 million from the MRC and BBSRC. She has been elected President of the UK Tissue and Cell Engineering Society, served as Council member for TERMIS EU (2012–2015), and as core review panel member for BBSRC (2011–2016). A Fellow of IOM3 since 2017, she contributes to editorial boards including Biomaterials, Journal of Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering, and World Journal of Orthopaedics. Key publications encompass 'Electrical stimulation: a novel tool for tissue engineering' (2013), 'Conductive polymers: towards a smart biomaterial for tissue engineering' (2014), and recent articles on co-stimulation with piezoelectric PVDF films for osteogenesis (2025) and electrical characterisation of conductive hydrogels (2026), amassing over 7,500 citations.