Nancy Sottos

Nancy Sottos studied mechanical engineering at the University of Delaware, receiving her B.S. in 1986 and her Ph.D. in 1991. She also participated in women's varsity track and field and was active on the Athletic Governing Board and the Commission on the Status of Women.

Sottos accepted a faculty position in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1991. She was a member of the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, eventually serving as its interim head. In 2006 she joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. She was named the Donald B. Willet Professor of Engineering of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and a University Scholar. She was appointed co-chair of the Molecular and Electronic Nanostructures Research Theme at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology in 2004, succeeding Jeffrey Moore.

Sottos has been active on the editorial boards of Experimental Mechanics (1999–2006) and Composites Science and Technology (2002–present). She is a Fellow of the Society of Engineering Science (2007) and Fellow of the Society for Experimental Mechanics (2012). She was the president of the Society for Experimental Mechanics for 2014–2015. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2020 for contributions to the design and applications of self-healing and multifunctional materials.