Michael Patrick Sheetz was a cell biologist, a pioneer of mechanobiology and biomechanics, and a key contributor to the discovery of kinesin. He served as the Robert A. Welch Distinguished University Chair in Chemistry at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, the department of biochemistry and molecular biology. He was the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of Cell Biology at Columbia University, former distinguished professor and the founding director of the Mechanobiology Institute at the National University of Singapore, and former professor at Washington University in St. Louis and chairman at Duke University. In 1968, Sheetz earned a bachelor's degree at Albion College, and in 1972 received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology.