O'Connell on UC Berkeley's campus

Research Bio

Grace O'Connell is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley and an adjunct professor in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at UCSF.  Her research uses experimental and computational methods to understand the effect of injury and degeneration on soft tissues of the musculoskeletal system, such as cartilage and ligaments. Current NIH-funded research is using computational modeling to predict outcomes from surgical treatment for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis in collaboration with researchers in Arizona and Wisconsin. Research in collaboration with researchers at NASA AMES is focused on understanding how long duration spaceflight alters spine biomechanics and spine health. O’Connell also has ongoing research projects with colleagues at UCSF focused on modeling changes in biomechanical movement with osteoarthritis and low back pain. 

Research Expertise and Interest

biomechanics, tissue engineering, intervertebral disc, cartilage

In the News

CITRIS Invention Lab opens to produce COVID-19 supplies

While UC Berkeley observes California’s shelter-in-place order, with most research labs shuttered, the CITRIS Invention Lab has received a rare exemption to operate the makerspace to fabricate products and prototypes designed to mitigate the COVID-19 crisis, including Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), ventilator adaptors, and materials needed by campus researchers. 

How To Grow Back The Back - Engineered Cartilage Surfaces

Researcher Grace O’Connell, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley, is advancing ways to grow human disc tissue — the spongy, protective material between vertebrae — and other engineered cartilage surfaces in a lab.

Featured in the Media

Please note: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or positions of UC Berkeley.
April 8, 2020

UC Berkeley engineers convert sleep apnea machines into ventilators for COVID-19 patients

San Francisco Chronicle
Madeline Wells
Ventilator SOS, a project co-led by mechanical engineering professor Grace O'Connell, is seeking donations of unwanted CPAP and BiPAP machines from people who may have used them for sleep apnea. They are converting the devices into much-needed ventilators for COVID-19 patients. "Tens of thousands of COVID-19 patients in this country and around the world will need respiratory support in the coming weeks and months," Professor O'Connell says. "We believe that using sleep apnea machines is a viable solution for non-ICU patients. This way, higher-grade ventilators can be reserved for patients with more advanced stages of respiratory disease." For more on the project, see this story at Berkeley Engineering.
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April 7, 2020

First Do No Harm: We Need More (And Better) Ventilators

Forbes
John Osborn
Mechanical engineering professor Grace O'Connell is co-leading a Berkeley effort to convert devices used to treat sleep apnea into much-needed ventilators for COVID-19 patients. In the schematic design she and her team developed, the modified CPAP or BIPAP machine accepts oxygen where ambient air enters the device. The oxygenated air is then filtered and delivered to a patient through an FDA-approved endotracheal tube, with the exhaled air re-filtered before being released. A volunteer community effort led by two students is gathering donated machines for conversion. It's estimated that there are 8-10 million machines available in American households for conversion. And since the devices and the components needed to convert them are readily available, these ventilators could be made available to patients much more quickly than newly manufactured ventilators. For more on this, see this story at Berkeley Engineering.
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Teaching

Courses taught during the three most recent terms
2026 Spring

  • Master of Engineering Capstone Project  [ENGIN 296MB]  

  • Mechanical Behavior of Engineering Materials  [MECENG 108]  

  • Group Studies, Seminars, or Group Research  [MECENG 298]  

  • Individual Study or Research  [MECENG 299]  

  • Supervised Independent Group Studies  [MECENG 98]  

2025 Fall

  • Designing for the Human Body  [BIOENG C137]  

  • Adv Designing for the Human Body  [BIOENG C237]  

  • Master of Engineering Capstone Project  [ENGIN 296MA]  

  • Special Topics in Design  [MECENG 193C]  

  • Group Studies, Seminars, or Group Research  [MECENG 298]  

  • Individual Study or Research  [MECENG 299]  

  • Designing for the Human Body  [MECENG C178]  

  • Adv Designing for the Human Body  [MECENG C278]  

2025 Spring

  • Master of Engineering Capstone Project  [ENGIN 296MB]  

  • Group Studies, Seminars, or Group Research  [MECENG 298]  

  • Individual Study or Research  [MECENG 299]  

  • Advanced Tissue Mechanics  [MECENG C214]