Manu Prakesh

Manu Prakash is an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and affiliate appointments in biology and the newly formed department of the ocean at Stanford University spanning the schools of engineering, medicine, and sustainability. He runs a curiosity-driven lab at Stanford combining his passion for basic science while also inventing ultra-affordable and accessible technologies (Frugal Science) that are used around the world for science education, research, and public health with the goal of democratizing access to scientific explorations. In an attempt to understand physical principles of living matter — his approach to biological problems often brings together ideas from soft-condensed matter, theory of computation, and geometry to new non-model biological systems at organismal, cellular and molecular scales. His numerous inventions include Foldscope (a one-dollar origami microscope), Paperfuge (a 20-cent centrifuge), Abuzz (a cellphone app for identifying mosquitoes) and Octopi (a malaria diagnostics tool). Manu grew up in India and got his PhD from MIT, was a Junior Fellow at Harvard Society of Fellows and a 2016 MacArthur Fellow.

Learn more about Manu here.