New faculty spring 2026
The Eberly College of Science welcomes its newest tenure-line faculty member in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Michael Hanna, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, studies how animal cells protect themselves from damaged or dysfunctional organelles called lysosomes. Lysosomes contain digestive enzymes and are considered critical signaling hubs that control cellular metabolism. Using biochemical techniques in combination with live-cell microscopy, Hannah’s lab studies how animal cells sense and repair lysosomal damage. Failure to repair damaged lysosomes is increasingly implicated in neurological disorders.
Hanna received a National Institutes of Health Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award to fund his postdoctoral research in 2018. His research has been published in journals such as the Journal of Cell Biology, The EMBO Journal, and PNAS.
Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, Hanna was an associate research scientist and a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University from 2018 to 2025 in the department of neuroscience. He earned his doctoral degree from the Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology training program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2017 and bachelor’s of science degrees in chemistry and neuroscience from Baldwin-Wallace University in 2011.