Rebekah A Drezek earned her BS in electrical Engineering from Duke University in 1996. She then went to the University of Texas, Austin, and earned her MS and PhD degrees in 1998 and 2001, respectively. Upon completion of her PhD, she did postdoctoral work at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center until 2002. She is now Professor of Bioengineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering, and serves as Associate Chair of the Department of Bioengineering, at Rice University. 

Drezek’s research has been published in 118 papers and has led to four patents. She has received numerous awards, including the MIT TR100 Technology Reviews’ selection of 100 Top Young Innovators Award in 2004, the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation Becton Dickinson Career Achievement Award in 2005, and the Beckman Young Investigator Award in 2005. She was one of four scientists invited to speak on nanotechnology at the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Frontiers of Engineering annual meeting in 2006, one of three breast cancer researchers recognized as a U.S. Department of Defense Era of Hope Scholar in 2007, and the first bioengineer to receive the American Society for Photobiology Research Award in 2008. Drezek is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and a recipient of the Adolph Lomb Medal.