Maria Oden is Professor in the Practice, Department of Bioengineering and Director of the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen at Rice University. She co-directs Rice 360˚: Institute for Global Health Technologies. In these roles, Oden collaborates with Rice faculty members to develop and execute engineering design programs for undergraduate students in all engineering disciplines that provide students with unique hands-on design experience and opportunities to test and carry ideas to their intended point of application. 

Her primary area of engineering design work is working with undergraduate students to design technologies for health care in the world’s lowest resource settings.

She is a recipient of the 2012 Fred Merryfield Design Award by the American Society for Engineering Education, the 2012 George R. Brown Prize for Superior Teaching from Rice University and, with her colleague Dr. Rebecca Richards-Kortum, the 2013 $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Global Innovation.