Friend named Stephen F. and Camilla T. Brauer Distinguished Professor

James Friend, a highly acclaimed innovator with expertise in creating biomedical devices and diagnostic tools, has been named the Stephen F. and Camilla T. Brauer Distinguished Professor in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. He was installed Sept. 15, 2026.

Friend’s research explores and exploits acoustic phenomena at small scales for primarily biomedical applications. He has more than 350 peer-reviewed research publications, 34 issued patents, 25 provisional patents, and has been awarded more than $37 million in competitive grant-based research funding from such agencies as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and the Office of Naval Research.

Friend joined the WashU faculty in November 2025 as chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, succeeding Philip V. Bayly, the Lee Hunter Distinguished Professor, who had been chair since 2008. He currently leads a research group of six doctoral and two master’s students. Recent work in his lab has focused on developing a device that uses sound waves to pump fluid through various types of porous materials. Such a device could be used to deliver drugs efficiently, as a diagnostic device, in fuel cells, and to filter and separate chemicals, among other uses.

“James’ research spans medicine and biology, advanced materials and innovative systems for microfluidics, all designed to have an impact on our world,” said Aaron F. Bobick, dean and the James M. McKelvey Professor. “We are grateful to Stephen and Kimmy Brauer for establishing this professorship to support an outstanding researcher and for their continued support of McKelvey Engineering and WashU.”

Prior to WashU, Friend spent 14 years as a faculty member in Japan and Australia before returning to the U.S. in 2014 as a professor in both the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the Jacobs School of Engineering and the Department of Surgery in the School of Medicine at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). Friend was later named the Stanford S. and Beverly P. Penner Endowed Chair in Engineering at UCSD, where he led the Medically Advanced Devices Laboratory in the Center for Medical Devices and was director of the Center for Medical Device Engineering and Biomechanics.

Two of his patents are responsible for Sonocharge Energy, a startup company founded and run by one of Friend’s former doctoral students. Friend is a senior adviser to the company, which closed Series A funding in May 2024. Friend co-founded Latchability Inc. in 2024 based on a patent-pending integrated microtechnology and machine learning algorithm to quickly identify infant breastfeeding issues to improve breastfeeding rates as well as maternal and infant health. He has founded or co-founded several other companies since 2019 to license and use his acoustofluidic and endovascular fluidic actuator inventions. 

Among Friend’s numerous awards include receiving the Carl Hellmuth Hertz Ultrasonics Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2015 before being named a fellow of the IEEE in 2018; selection as a Keck Fellow from 2018 to 2021; recognition as a highly cited author by the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2020; the UCSD Distinguished Teaching Award in 2021; and election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2022.

Stephen F. and Camilla T. Brauer

Stephen Brauer, the former U.S. ambassador to Belgium, is chairman of Hunter Engineering Co., a global leader in manufacturing computer-based, automotive service equipment, headquartered in St. Louis. He joined Hunter Engineering in 1971 and was named president of the company in 1981.

His long association with Washington University began in 1987, when he joined the engineering school’s National Council, which he chaired from 2005-2015. He was elected to the university’s Board of Trustees in 1991 and served as its chair from 2009-2014. He was named a life trustee in 2008, and received an honorary doctor of laws degree from the university in 2016. 

Camilla “Kimmy” Brauer is a leading figure in local cultural and civic organizations and has been recognized nationally for her volunteer work as a fundraiser. A former member of the Danforth Circle Committee of the Eliot Society, she is a life member of the St. Louis Variety Club board of directors and the Women’s Society of WashU and a member of the board of directors for the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and Missouri Historical Society. Kimmy headed the De Tocqueville Society for a record number of years. The United Way of Greater St. Louis, in recognition of her service on their board of directors, honored her in 2021 with their Freeman-Kortkamp Award. At the St. Louis Art Museum, she has served as both president of the board of trustees and as a member of the board of commissioners. In 1996 she was named Outstanding Fund Raising Volunteer by the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Among the Brauers’ many noteworthy contributions to WashU is a gift to name Stephen F. and Camilla T. Brauer Hall, which was dedicated in 2010. They endowed the Stephen F. and Camilla T. Brauer Distinguished Professorship and the Lee Hunter Distinguished Professorship and have made significant investments in scholarships.

In recognition of their generous support, McKelvey Engineering honored the Brauers with the Dean’s Award in 2009. In addition, the couple received the Robert S. Brookings Award from the Washington University Board of Trustees at Founders Day in 2016. They also were the 2013 recipients of the Jane and Whitney Harris St. Louis Community Service Award for their exemplary dedication to advancing the educational, cultural and civic institutions in the region.

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