Faculty Directory

DeVoe, Don

DeVoe, Don

Fischell Institute Fellow
Mechanical Engineering
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Maryland Robotics Center
Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices
5226 A. James Clark Hall

Don DeVoe is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Idea Factory at the University of Maryland, College Park.  He holds affiliate faculty appointments in the Fischell Department of Bioengineering and Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and is a faculty member within the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices. Dr. DeVoe completed his B.S. (1991) and M.S. (1993) degrees in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland, and received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997 with a dissertation focused on piezoelectric MEMS sensors and actuators. His current research interests target the development of microfluidic systems for applications in clinical diagnostics, cancer immunology, nanomedicine, and aerovirology. His research has been supported by NIH, NSF, DARPA, ONR, NIST, and diverse industry partners, and he has supervised more than 35 doctoral students, many of whom now hold faculty positions in the U.S. and Asia or technical leadership roles in industry and government laboratories. He has authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications, and is an inventor on eight U.S. patents. In 2000 he co-founded Calibrant Biosystems, a biomarker discovery company leveraging technology licensed from the University of Maryland. He later founded Io Scientific to commercialize active nanomaterials developed in his lab for enhanced protein analysis by mass spectrometry. He received a Wilson H. Elkins Professorship from the University of Maryland in 2020, and was named a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher in 2023.  He is also a recipient of the 2013 University System of Maryland Regents Award for Research. Dr. DeVoe was recognized with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the National Science Foundation in 1999 for advances in microsystems technology, and was named a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Science in 2008.  He served for over a decade as a Senior Editor for the IEEE/ASME Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems (J. MEMS), and as a Board Member and Treasurer for the Chemical and Biological Microsystems Society (CBMS). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

  • MEMS and microsystems technology
  • Microfluidic systems
  • Additive manufacturing at the micro/nano scales
  • Disposable diagnostics
  • Scalable nanomedicine development

Microhydrocyclones for Scalable Exosome Isolation

Exosomes have emerged as a powerful drug delivery vehicle, with enormous potential for efficient delivery of diverse therapeutic cargos to targeted cells. Despite the promise of exosome-based nanotherapeutics, existing techniques for exosome isolation cannot support the throughput required by the drug development process. Progress in the field is endangered by the need for technological advancements enabling high-throughput and scalable exosome isolation. In this project, a novel microscale hydrocyclone (µHC) technology is being developed to increase the throughput of exosome separations by orders of magnitude over existing methods, thereby enabling rapid, efficient, and scalable continuous-flow isolation from a range of biological samples. The µHC technology leverages nanoscale additive manufacturing using in situ direct laser writing, supporting the fabrication of complex and high resolution 3D features directly within thermoplastic microfluidic substrates. 
 

Synthetic Biogenesis of Eukaryotic Cells

We are developing techniques to perform bottom-up engineering of eukaryotic cell-like organelles, enabling complex systems mimicking the structure and function of biological cells. The project is focused on achieving synthetic biogenesis using engineering principles while leveraging new technologies for creating artificial organelles with control over structure and molecular content, together with techniques for combining biological isolates with the engineered structures and methods for integrating these organelles, including assembling the biological functions that link organelles together. Specifically, we are developing the tools and methods needed to construct the lipid-based structures mimicking the nucleus, endoplasmic reticulum, and mitochondrion, and exploring the pathways of communication between them. 
 

Continuous-Flow Microfluidic Synthesis of Liposomal Nanomedicines

Therapeutics employing nanoscale unilamellar lipid vesicles (liposomes) as drug carriers are the most widely studied and successful class of nanomedicines. However, the transition of liposomal nanomedicines from the lab bench to clinical use remains constrained by the lack of nanomanufacturing methods capable of scaling across the full production range. Current techniques for liposome synthesis, drug encapsulation, surface functionalization, and nanoparticle concentration/purification must be re-engineered at each scale, introducing manufacturing costs and engineering challenges that present significant barriers to the development of new liposomal drugs. Overcoming this gap is fundamentally a nanomanufacturing challenge. In this effort we developed continuous-flow microfluidics technology as a unique scalable approach to bridge this nanomedicine manufacturing gap. The technology leverages multi-domain transport across multiple size scales to establish steep and controllable gradients within a sequence of continuous-flow microfluidic flow cells, enabling gradient-driven nanoparticle self-assembly, passive and active drug loading, nanoparticle functionalization, and drug purification and concentration. 
 

Trap Array Chips Enabling Rapid, Automated, and Portable Antibiotic Resistance Screening

Antibiotic resistance represents a major and growing threat to public health, with drug-resistant pathogens significantly increasing rates of morbidity and mortality for infected patients. A major challenge associated with the increase in antimicrobial drug resistance is the lack of rapid assays for identifying causative pathogens and their drug resistance profiles during the earliest stages of treatment. Due to the complexity, limited multiplexing capacity, and low throughput of existing assays, the full clinical utility of PCR as a tool for guiding the treatment of bacterial infection has not yet been realized. In this project we developed a low-cost and disposable thermoplastic microfluidic platform employing a novel trap array technology addressing these constraints and opening the door to routine clinical application of PCR for antibiotic resistance screening. The trap array platform supports thousands of simultaneous PCR reactions using primers for multiple antibiotic-resistance gene targets, without the need for external pumping, valving, substrate preparation, or reagent introduction, and is currently being expanded to a million-well platform for digital PCR.
 

ENME476 Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS)

Fundamentals of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Introduction to transducers and markets. MEMS fabrication processes and materials, including bulk micromachining, wet etching, dry etching, surface micromachining, sacrificial layers, film deposition, bonding, and non-traditional micromachining. Introduction to the relevant solid state physics, including crystal lattices, band structure, semiconductors, and doping. The laboratory covers safety, photolithography, profilometry, wet etching
 

ENME481/740 Lab-on-a-Chip Microsystems

Fundamentals and application of lab-on-a-chip and microfluidic technologies. A broad view of the field of microfluidics, knowledge of relevant fabrication methods and analysis techniques, and an understanding of the coupled multi-domain phenomena that dominate the physics in these systems.
 

ENME441 Mechatronics and the Internet of Things (IoT)

The field of mechatronics integrates dynamical systems, transducers, computation, control, and design to realize systems where complexity is shifted from solely mechanical components to the merged domains of mechanics, electronics, and software. This project-driven course will provide a structured hands-on environment to strengthen students’ understanding of mechatronics principles, and extend these concepts to the Internet of Things (IoT) in which sensors and actuators are embedded into physical objects together with wireless communications, enabling remote interaction with these objects through the Internet. 

Recent Publications (see https://mml.umd.edu or https://www.researcherid.com/rid/A-2891-2011 for a full listing)

  1. J. Lee, E.H. Benke, I.M. White, D.L. DeVoe, “Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) for reagent storage and controlled release in thermoplastic microfluidics,” Lab Chip, 26, 897, 2026.

  2. E. Rosenfeld, K. Pacheco, E. Benke, I.M. White, D.L. DeVoe, “A portable and low-cost fluorescence reader for near-patient nucleic acid amplification assays,” Biomed Microdev, 28, 14, 2026.

  3. E. Salazar-Cavazos, D. Jia, Y. Missolo-Koussou, A. Kenet, S. Achar, H. Dada, T. Kondo, A. Krishnan, N. Taylor, P. Jiang, J. Waterfall, D.L. DeVoe, G. Altan-Bonnet, “Stochasticity in cancer immunotherapy stems from rare but functionally-critical Spark T cells,” Cell, 189, 1-12, 2026.

  4. J. Lai, H. Sobhani, K.K. Coleman, S.-H.S. Tai, F. Hong, I.S. Maldonado, Y. Esparza, K.M. McPhaul, S. Zhu, D.L. DeVoe, J.R. Ortiz, S. Chen, T. Yellin, J.M. Carreno, F. Krammer, B.J. Cowling, A. Gordon, W.H. Chen, J. Srebric, D.K. Milton, “Evaluating modes of influenza transmission (EMIT-2): challenges of a controlled human influenza virus infection transmission trial (CHIVITT),” PLOS Pathogens, 22, e1013153, 2026.

  5. S. Mehraji, N.H. Pirolli, R. Nowak, S.M. Jay, D.L. DeVoe, “Therapeutic extracellular vesicle preparation via electrophoretic enrichment and counterflow microdialysis,” Lab Chip, 26, 353-363, 2026.

  6. S. Mehraji, D.L. DeVoe, “Multilayer counterflow microdialysis chips for scalable buffer exchange and sample purification,” Anal Chem, 97, 15502-15509, 2025.

  7. K. Pacheco, L. DeVoe, D.L. DeVoe, “Fabrication of superhydrophobic glass surfaces by hierarchical micro powder blasting-assisted silanization,” Langmuir, 41, 22433-22440, 2025.

  8. P. Bhattacharya, D. Rastogi, S. Mehraji, J. Camarero de la Torre, A. Mehta, S. Tai, A. Hasani, A. Smith, W. Smith, A. Asa-Awuku, D.K. Milton, D.L. DeVoe, “3D printed microcyclones for enhanced collection, separation, and recovery of sub-micrometer bioaerosols,” Sens Act B, 444, 138349, 2025.

  9. S.R. Srimathi, M.A. Ignacio, M. Rife, S. Tai, D.K. Milton, M.A. Scull, D.L. DeVoe, “Microfluidic digital focus assays for the quantification of infectious influenza virus,” Lab Chip, 25, 2004-2016, 2025.

  10. M. Yeh, E. Salazar-Cavazos, A. Krishnan, G. Altan-Bonnet,  D.L. DeVoe, “Probing T-cell activation in nanoliter tumor co-cultures using membrane displacement trap arrays,” Integrative Biology, 16, zyae014, 2024.

 

    UMD's 40th Annual Convocation Honors Engineering Staff, Faculty

    The University of Maryland's 40th annual Convocation will honor 33 faculty and staff—including four from the A. James Clark School of Engineering—for their contributions to education, research, and the campus community.

    Yu Named Elkins Professor

    Award to support research on marine ecosystem monitoring, boost collaboration.

    DeVoe Awarded Elkins Professorship

    UMD professor to develop new technology for studying individual cell behavior.

    Derek Paley wins PECASE Award

    ISR/AE faculty member has research interests in dynamics and control.

    Sarah Bergbreiter wins PECASE Award

    ISR/ME faculty member specializes in microrobotics.

    REU in Miniature Robotics holds final project symposium

    Nine projects range from wings for MAVs to vision sensors for small robots to small grasping hands.

    Miniature Robotics REU students give final presentations

    Ten undergrads from around the country give talks on their summer projects.

    ISR welcomes 10 REU microbotics students for the summer

    Students will develop interdisciplinary research projects in 10-week program.

    • Royal Society of Chemistry


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