Karen Lozano
Karen Lozano is the Trustee Professor and department chair of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice University. Her research focuses on the design and scalable manufacturing of nanofiber-based systems with applications spanning filtration, medical devices, energy storage and advanced materials. She invented Forcespinning, a patented centrifugal process that produces nanofibers at industrial scale, offering a high-throughput alternative to high voltage-based techniques such as electrospinning. Lozano holds more than 40 patents and patent applications and has co-founded two companies to bring these innovations to market.
A Rice master鈥檚 degree and doctoral alumna, Lozano is the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions, including membership in the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Inventors and winner of the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. An advocate for innovation and access in STEM, she was named the 2025 Higher Education Professional of the Year by the Sloan Scholars Mentoring Network.