Dr. Deirdre R. Meldrum received a bachelor´s of science degree in civil engineering from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1983, a master´s degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y. in 1985, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University in California in 1993.
As an engineering co-op student at the NASA Johnson Space Center in 1980 and 1981, she was an instructor for the astronauts on the Shuttle Mission Simulator. From 1985-1987, she was a Member of the Technical Staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and performed theoretical and experimental work in identification and control of large flexible space structures and robotics.
Meldrum joined the faculty at the University of Washington in 1992, rising to full professor in electrical engineering in 2001. She also held adjunct appointments in the departments of bioengineering and mechanical engineering. She was awarded a National Institutes of Health Special Emphasis Research Career Award (SERCA) in 1993 to train in biology and genetics, bring her engineering expertise to the genome project, and develop automated laboratory instrumentation. She was founder and director of the Genomation Laboratory in the Department of Electrical Engineering with research interests in genome automation, microscale systems for biological applications, ecogenomics, robotics, and control systems. In 1996, she was awarded a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers "for recognition of innovative research utilizing a broad set of interdisciplinary approaches to advance DNA sequencing technology."
In 2001, Meldrum was awarded a National Institutes of Health Center of Excellence in Genomics Science, which led to the establishment of the Microscale Life Sciences Center. The center brings together researchers in electrical engineering, chemical engineering, chemistry, materials science and engineering, laboratory medicine, microbiology and cancer biology from Arizona State University, University of Washington, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Brandeis University to work on developing microscale devices to provide genetic information. The goal is to understand cell proliferation and cell death in the effort to better understand health problems such as cancer, heart disease and stroke. The MLSC grant was renewed for another five years, 2006-2011.
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Meldrum brings Arizona State University as a partner to the NEPTUNE project led by John Delaney at the University of Washington. The project´s goal is to construct a cabled underwater observatory that will be built on the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate in the northeast Pacific Ocean for real-time observations and experiments with sensors. Meldrum´s team is developing sensing devices and other instruments to gain knowledge of the biological, chemical and physical environments at microbial levels on the sea floor. In August 2006, she went to the sea floor at 2200 m below sea level in the Alvin submersible to perform experiments in the NE Pacific Ocean. The NEPTUNE project is the regional scaled observatory (RSO) part of the Ocean Research Interactive Observatory Networks (ORION) Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI).
Meldrum´s move in 2007 to the position as dean of the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering brings the Microscale Life Sciences Center and her research team´s part in the NEPTUNE project to Arizona State University. The team´s work is headquartered in the new Center for EcoGenomics at the Biodesign Institute at ASU.
Meldrum is a member of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Climos, Inc., a member of the advisory board for external research and programs for Microsoft Research, and member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, The American Chemical Society, the Association for Women in Science, the Human Genome Organization, the Society of Women Engineers and Sigma Xi. She is an Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering.
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