Abdul Barakat is a research director at the CNRS, professor of mechanics and biology at the École Polytechnique, and adjunct professor of mechanical and manufacturing engineering at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. With a PhD in biofluid mechanics from MIT, Abdul Barakat co-founded the startup Sensome, which develops cutting-edge sensor technologies for medical devices. His research focuses on vascular biomechanics and bioengineering, cellular mechanobiology, and endovascular devices. He has published more than 250 journal and conference articles and has received the Pfizer-Parke Davis Atorvastatin Research Award (2001), a permanent chair from the AXA Research Fund (2010), and the Eugenio Beltrami Senior Scientist Prize from the International Center for Research on Mathematics and Mechanics of Complex Systems (2020). He is also an elected member of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.