Angela Pannier, Swarts Family Chair of biological systems engineering and professor of biomedical engineering, has been named director of the Nebraska Center for Biotechnology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Pannier’s appointment took effect July 1. She succeeded Daniel Schachtman, George Holmes Professor of agronomy and horticulture, who has served in the role since 2014.
One of UNL’s university-wide research centers, the Center for Biotechnology’s mission is to drive excellence in interdisciplinary life sciences research at Nebraska. The center offers cutting-edge instrumentation through its six core facilities; expert technical and scientific support to the university community and beyond; and support for faculty, staff and students engaged in life sciences and biomedical research.
As director, Pannier will be responsible for the strategic vision and oversight that will steer the center’s continued growth and success.
The role is key to driving faculty success, working collaboratively with university administration, colleges, departments, research centers, and University of Nebraska partners to help faculty achieve their research goals. The director and center’s team of individual core facility directors provide instrumentation and technical scientific expertise; assist with grant applications and manuscripts; train students and postdocs; and work to advance research across disciplines. The center’s cores include microscopy, flow cytometry, bioinformatics, cryoEM, proteomics and metabolomics, and single-cell genomics.
Jennifer Nelson, vice chancellor for research and innovation, said Pannier’s experience and vision make her the ideal candidate to lead the center.
“We are fortunate to have someone of Dr. Pannier’s caliber leading the Nebraska Center for Biotechnology, building upon its successes and taking it to the next level,” Nelson said. “She has built a strong background in instrumentation through her own biomedical engineering research program, while demonstrating a strong commitment and passion for graduate education.”
Pannier’s responsibilities will include:
- Identifying and pursuing funding opportunities from federal, state and private sources, with the goal of acquiring and upgrading major research instrumentation.
- Collaborating closely with other center and core facility directors at UNL and across the NU System to align and coordinate major equipment investments, optimize resource sharing and promote efficiency across research units.
- Providing administrative and budgetary oversight.
- Fostering an environment in which faculty, staff and students can excel.
Pannier has been a UNL faculty member for 19 years.
She said one of her goals as director is to ensure that faculty are aware that the center can be a partner earlier in the research process, including during proposal and project development.
“We hope to become research partners and not just a service center that individuals come to at the end of a project or once they’ve already collected data,” Pannier said
She also looks forward to supporting UNL scientists’ career development by remaining on the cutting edge with new, emergent instrumentation that they need to conduct their research.
Pannier received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biological systems engineering from UNL and her Ph.D. in biological sciences from Northwestern University. She has earned grant funding from federal funding agencies that include the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and U.S. Department of Agriculture; the American Heart Association; and industry. She has been a reviewer for more than 50 different journals and funding agencies, including NSF and NIH and serves as an associate editor of Science Advances.
In 2019, Pannier received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the U.S. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. She was named a fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society in 2020 and was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2022.
