Ellen Kuhl is the Catherine Holman Johnson Director of Stanford Bio-X and the Walter B. Reinhold Professor in the

School of Engineering Engineering education is the activity of teaching knowledge and principles to the professional development, professional practice of engineering. It includes an initial education (Diploma in Engineering, Dip.Eng.)and Bachelor of Engineering, ( ...

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. She is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and, by courtesy, Bioengineering. Kuhl has is known for her research on Automated Model Discovery and Living Matter Physics, the design of theoretical and computational models to simulate and predict the behavior of

living systems Living systems are life forms (or, more colloquially known as living things) treated as a system. They are said to be open self-organizing and said to interact with their environment. These systems are maintained by flows of information, energy an ...

including the human brain and the living heart.

Bibliography

Kuhl grew up in Germany, and now lives in

Palo Alto Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

, California. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in computational engineering from the Leibniz University of Hanover in 1993 and 1995, her Ph.D. in civil engineering from the

University of Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart () is a research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany with programs in civil, mechanical, ind ...

in 2000, and her

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

in mechanics from the

Technical University of Kaiserslautern Technical University of Kaiserslautern (German: ''Technische Universität Kaiserslautern'', also known as TU Kaiserslautern or TUK) was a public university, public research university in Kaiserslautern, Germany. On January 1, 2023, the univers ...

in 2004. She was appointed as assistant professor at the

in 2002, and joined the department of mechanical engineering at

in 2007. In 2011, she accepted a position at

ETH Zurich ETH Zurich (; ) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ETH Zurich ran ...

, but returned to

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

in 2012. She was promoted to full professor in 2016, and named the Walter B. Reinhold Professor in 2021. From 2019 to 2024, Kuhl has been the department chair of mechanical engineering. Since 2024, she is the director of Bio-X, the first interdisciplinary life sciences institute at Stanford.

Research

Kuhl's research integrates physics-based modeling with

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

and creates interactive simulation tools to understand, explore, and predict the dynamics of living systems. She has pioneered theories and algorithms for automated model discovery and living systems, and applies these theories to

brain development The brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head ( cephalization), usually near organs for special sens ...

brain damage Brain injury (BI) is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur due to a wide range of internal and external factors. In general, brain damage refers to significant, undiscriminating trauma-induced damage. A common ...

neurodegeneration A neurodegenerative disease is caused by the progressive loss of neurons, in the process known as neurodegeneration. Neuronal damage may also ultimately result in their cell death, death. Neurodegenerative diseases include amyotrophic lateral sc ...

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease and the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems wit ...

tissue expansion Tissue expansion is a technique used by plastic, maxillofacial and reconstructive surgeons to cause the body to grow additional skin, bone, or other tissues. Other biological phenomena such as tissue inflammation can also be considered expansion ( ...

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome caused by an impairment in the heart's ability to Cardiac cycle, fill with and pump blood. Although symptoms vary based on which side of the heart is affected, HF ...

, dilated and

hypertrophic cardiomyopathy Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM, or HOCM when obstructive) is a condition in which muscle tissues of the heart become thickened without an obvious cause. The parts of the heart most commonly affected are the interventricular septum and the ...

. During the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

pandemic, her lab was among the first to use data-driven modeling to integrate classical

epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and Risk factor (epidemiology), determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population, and application of this knowledge to prevent dise ...

modeling and

to infer critical disease parameters, in real time, from reported data to make informed predictions and guide political decision making. This work gained recognition during a legal challenge of the Newfoundland travel ban and in a study of superspreading events on college campuses.

Awards and honors

Kuhl is a Fellow of the

American Society of Mechanical Engineers The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing edu ...

and of the

American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) is a non-profit organization founded in 1991, and headquartered in Washington, D.C. It represents 50,000 medical and Biomedical engineering, biomedical engineers, and academic i ...

. She received the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

Career Award in 2010, was selected as Midwest Mechanics Seminar Speaker in 2014, and received the

Humboldt Research Award The Humboldt Research Award (), also known informally as the Humboldt Prize, is an award given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany to internationally renowned scientists and scholars who work outside of Germany in recognition of t ...

in 2016, the ASME Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics Award in 2021, and the ERC Advanced Grant in 2024.

Personal life

Kuhl is an All American

triathlete A triathlon is an endurance multisport race consisting of swimming, cycling, and running over various distances. Triathletes compete for fastest overall completion time, racing each segment sequentially with the time transitioning between the ...

. She ran the

New York City Marathon The New York City Marathon, currently branded as the TCS New York City Marathon for sponsorship reasons, is an annual marathon () that courses through the five boroughs of New York City. It is the largest marathon in the world, with 53,627 fini ...

in 2009, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2024, the Zurich Marathon in 2011, the

San Francisco Marathon The San Francisco Marathon is an annual USATF-certified road running event held in San Francisco, California, that includes a full marathon, two half marathons, an ultramarathon, a 10k, and a 5K. With the exceptions of 1988, 1993, and 2020, th ...

in 2013, the

Chicago Marathon The Chicago Marathon is a road marathon held in October in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the seven World Marathon Majors. Thus, it is also a World Athletics Label Road Race. The Chicago Marathon is one of the largest races by number of fini ...

in 2017, and the

Boston Marathon The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon race hosted by eight cities and towns in greater Boston in eastern Massachusetts, United States. It is traditionally held on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897, the event was ins ...

annually since 2018. She competed in seven Ironmans and ten 70.3s, including the 2019, 2022, 2023

Ironman World Championship The Ironman World Championship is a triathlon held annually in Hawaii, United States from 1978 to 2022, with no race in 2020 and an additional race in 1982. It is owned and organized by the World Triathlon Corporation. It is the annual culminat ...

in Kona and the 2021 Ironman 70.3 World Championship and

in St. George.

Selected publications

* Alber M, Buganza Tepole A, Cannon W, De S, Dura-Bernal S, Garikipati K, Karniadakis G, Lytton WW, Perdikaris P, Petzold L, Kuhl E. Integrating machine learning and multiscale modeling: Perspectives, challenges, and opportunities in the biological, biomedical, and behavioral sciences. ''npj Digital Medicine''; 2019; 2:115. . * Baillargeon B, Rebelo N, Fox DD, Taylor RL, Kuhl E. The Living Heart Project: A robust and integrative simulator for human heart function. ''Eur J Mech A/Solids''. 2014;48:38-47. * Budday S, Nay R, de Rooij R, Steinmann P, Wyrobek T, Ovaert TC, Kuhl E. Mechanical properties of gray and white matter brain tissue by indentation. ''J Mech Behavior Biomed Mat''. 2015;46:318-330. * Budday S, Sommer G, Hayback J, Steinmann P, Holzapfel GA, Kuhl E. Rheological characterization of human brain tissue. ''Acta Biomat''. 2017; 60:315-329. * Goriely A, Geers MGD, Holzapfel GA, Jayamohan J, Jerusalem A, Sivaloganathan S, Squier W, van Dommelen JAW, Waters S, Kuhl E. Mechanics of the brain: Perspectives, challenges, and opportunities. ''Biomech Mod Mechanobio''. 2015;14:931-965. * Kuhl E. Biophysics: Unfolding the brain. Nature Physics. 2016;12:533-534. * Kuhl E. Connectomics of neurodegeneration. Nat Neurosci. 2019; 22:1200–1202. * Kuhl E. Computational Epidemiology: Data-Driven Modeling of COVID-19, ''Springer Nature'', 2021. . * Linka K, Peirlinck M, Sahli Costabal F, Kuhl E. Outbreak dynamics of COVID-19 in Europe and the effect of travel restrictions. ''Comp Meth Biomech Biomed Eng''; 2020; 23:710-717. * Linka K, Peirlinck M, Kuhl E. The reproduction number of COVID-19 and its correlation with public health interventions. ''Comp Mech''. 2020; 66:1035-1050. * Peirlinck M, Linka K, Sahli Costabal F, Kuhl E. Outbreak dynamics of COVID-19 in China and the United States. ''Biomech Model Mechanobio''; 2020; 19:2179-2193. * Peirlinck M, Sahli Costabal F, Yao J, Guccione JM, Tripathy S, Wang Y, Ozturk D, Segars P, Morrison TM, Levine S, Kuhl E. Precision medicine in human heart modeling. Perspectives, challenges and opportunities. ''Biomech Model Mechanobio''. 2021; 20:803-831. * Sahli Costabal F, Yang Y, Perdikaris P, Hurtado DE, Kuhl E. Physics-informed neural networks for cardiac activation mapping. ''Front Phys''. 2020; 8:42. * Schafer A, Peirlinck M, Linka K, Kuhl E. Bayesian physics-based modeling of tau propagation in Alzheimer's disease. ''Front Physiology''. 2021; 12:702975.

References

External links

Living Matter LabEllen Kuhl Google ScholarEllen Kuhl FacebookElen Kuhl Twitter
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuhl, Ellen Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American mechanical engineers American women engineers German mechanical engineers Leibniz University Hannover alumni University of Stuttgart alumni Academic staff of the Technical University of Kaiserslautern Stanford University faculty Academic staff of ETH Zurich Fellows of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers American women academics 21st-century American women 20th-century German engineers 21st-century German engineers 20th-century German women engineers 21st-century German women engineers