Malcolm Snead, a professor at the Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC and a principal investigator with USC Stem Cell, has been elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows—an elite group of 1,500 distinguished bioengineers, representing the top two percent of the medical and biological engineering community.

As a Fellow, Snead becomes part of the “life-blood” of AIMBE, working to advance the nonprofit organization’s mission, which is to advocate for biomedical engineering innovation through public policy initiatives and by educating Congress on the importance of federal funding for basic research and medical innovation.

Snead is a formidable front figure within the fields of tooth development, the molecular biology of enamel formation and biomineralization, molecular self-assembly and bioengineering and regeneration of hard tissues.

He joined the Ostrow faculty in 1984 as a research assistant professor and has been the chair of the Division of Biomedical Sciences since 2012.

To become a Fellow, an individual must be nominated by a current AIMBE Fellow. Once nominated, a subcommittee steeped in the expertise area of the nominees review the prospective Fellow. After subcommittee approval, the nominee is put up to a vote by the entire College of Fellows.

The College of Fellows consists of two Nobel Prize winners, 10 Presidential Medal of Science winners and eight Presidential Medal of Technology and Innovation winners as well as more than 200 members of the National Academies of Medicine, Engineering and Sciences.

Snead will be inducted during AIMBE’s Annual Meeting and Induction Ceremony on April 8-9 in Washington, DC.