Jeff Karp
Dr. Jeff Karp empowers students and drives innovation as a biomedical engineering professor at Harvard Medical School and MIT, an Endowed Chair at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he champions the power of unconventional thinking.
Inspired by nature’s ingenuity, he directs a lab dedicated to developing innovative medical technologies. Driven by a passion to improve patients’ lives, his team has invented technologies that have led to the formation of thirteen companies. These inventions include a tissue glue that can seal holes inside a beating heart; targeted therapies for osteoarthritis, Crohn’s disease, and brain disorders; ‘smart needles’ that automatically stop when they reach their target; a nasal spray that neutralizes pathogens; and immunotherapy approaches to annihilate cancer. Jeff’s research was featured in Popular Mechanics’ “Top 20 New Biotech Breakthroughs that Will Change Medicine.”
He harnesses the power of failure, viewing setbacks not as obstacles, but as rocket fuel for propelling his research and innovation forward. This philosophy has driven him to continually push boundaries to publish over 170 peer-reviewed papers with over 35,000 citations. He has delivered 400 invited lectures and holds over 100 patents. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, Royal Society of Canada, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the Canadian Academy of Engineering. Jeff is also a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (top 0.1%) and has received the Distinguished Alumni Award at the University of Toronto, the highest honor bestowed by the Engineering Alumni Network.
His work has garnered wide-reaching media attention, with features in major news outlets like CNN, the BBC, The Guardian, and Fortune Magazine, and has been highlighted in popular science publications such as National Geographic, Popular Science and Wired Magazine. He has contributed to the TEDMED and TEDx communities as a speaker and has inspired graduating students at various institutions, including the University of Toronto, Talcott Mountain Academy, and his alma mater, Crestwood High School.
Growing up in rural Canada, he was written off by his school because of ADHD and learning differences. This experience shaped his perspective and led him to develop a process for embracing life’s challenges, embodied by a set of 12 simple holistic tools, refined over years of iteration and tinkering, to make his unique patterns of thought and behavior work for him. These tools are now the subject of his new book: LIT: Life Ignition Tools: Use Nature’s Playbook to Energize Your Brain, Spark Ideas, and Ignite Action.
Jeff is also Head of Innovation at Geoversity, Nature’s University, a rainforest bio-leadership training conservancy located in one of the top biodiversity hotspots in the world. He is also a contributing author at Psychology Today, where he writes a blog titled: How Do You Think About That, exploring insights on personal growth and innovative thinking.
In addition to his research goals, Karp is dedicated to developing the careers of the next-generation bioengineers at the forefront of biomedical innovation. He was selected as the Outstanding Faculty Undergraduate Mentor among all faculty at MIT and he received the HST McMahon Mentoring award for being the top mentor of Harvard-MIT students. To date, 30 trainees from his laboratory have secured faculty positions.
Living in Brookline, Massachusetts, with his family and two Cavalier King Charles spaniels, he finds daily inspiration in nature walks that foster introspection, connect him with his values, and fuel his deep curiosity about the world.
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