Birgitt Boschitsch '18

Dr. Birgitt Boschitsch is co-founder and CEO of spotLESS Materials Inc., a startup spinning out Penn State technology and dedicated to commercializing anti-fouling coating technologies to consumers and across various industries. Birgitt received her PhD in mechanical engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, where her research focused on bio-inspired self-healing materials. She received her B.S.E. degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University, where she conducted research in bio-inspired propulsion. Birgitt has published 10 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals including Science Advances, Nature Communications, PNAS, Advanced Materials, and the Journal of Fluid Mechanics. She has also published a book chapter on nature inspired surface design and currently holds 5 issued and 11 pending US and international patents. She is a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, Materials Research Society (MRS) Graduate Student Gold Award, MRS Nowick Graduate Student Award, and the Penn State Alumni Association Dissertation Award and Distinguished Doctoral Scholar Medal. As a co-founder of spotLESS Materials, she serves as the principal investigator of the NSF SBIR Phase I and Phase II grants, is co-PI on an Office of Naval Research contract , and leads a number of commercial R&D and business efforts. She is a Y Combinator alumna and was recognized as a 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science.