Margaret Bennewitz, Ph.D.

PhD, biomedical engineering, Yale University, 2012

MPhil, biomedical engineering, Yale University, 2011

MS, biomedical engineering, Yale University, 2009

BS, bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, 2007

Biography

Dr. Margaret Bennewitz received her BS degree in Bioengineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 2007 and her PhD from Yale University in Biomedical Engineering in 2012. At Yale, she specialized in MRI cell tracking and contrast agent development for the diagnosis of glioblastoma multiforme. After completing her doctorate, Dr. Bennewitz accepted a postdoctoral fellowship in the M+Visión Program, a collaborative venture between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and hospitals and laboratories in Madrid, Spain. One of her projects involved the early detection of ovarian cancer through identifying characteristics of precursor lesions that could be imaged using optical microscopy. During her second postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Bennewitz developed an in vivo multiphoton microscopy technique (qFILM) for visualizing blood cell trafficking within the pulmonary microcirculation of live sickle cell disease mice and received an NIH NRSA F32 Fellowship to pursue this work. Dr. Bennewitz joined the faculty at West Virginia University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering in August 2017 and was promoted to Associate Professor in August 2025. Dr. Bennewitz is utilizing the complementary qualities of MRI and in vivo fluorescence imaging to study breast cancer and toxicology of e-cigarettes and nanoparticles. There are four main areas of emphasis: (1) development of new targeted MRI nanoparticle contrast agents for enhanced breast cancer detection, (2) design of a multimodal microfluidic chip platform for screening tumor targeted MRI contrast agents, (3) impact of MRI contrast agent design on off-target blood cell interactions and (4) use of in vivo fluorescence microscopy to elucidate the effects of e-cigarette exposure on blood cell interactions in the lung microvasculature.