David Kaplan, PhD, holds an endowed chair, the Stern Family Professor of Engineering, at Tufts University. He is professor and chair of the department of biomedical engineering and also holds faculty appointments in the School of Medicine, the School of Dental Medicine, department of chemistry and the department of chemical and biological engineering.

Dr. Kaplan's research focus is on biopolymer engineering to understand structure-function relationships, with emphasis on self-assembly, biomaterials engineering and functional tissue engineering. He has published over 400 papers and edited eight books. He directs the NIH P41 Tissue Engineering Resource Center (TERC) that involves Tufts University and Columbia University. 

Dr. Kaplan serves of the editorial boards of numerous journals and is associate editor for the journal Biomacromolecules. He has received a number of awards for teaching, was elected fellow, American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (2003) and received the Society for Biomaterials Clemson Award for contributions to the literature in 2007.