Katharina Ribbeck is a German-American biologist. She is the Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Biological Engineering at the Masschusetts Institute of Technology. She is known as one of the first researchers to study how mucus impacts microbial behavior. Ribbeck investigates both the function of mucus as a barrier to pathogens such as fungi, bacteria, and viruses and how mucus can be leveraged for therapeutic purposes. She has also studied changes that cervical mucus undergoes before birth, which may lead to a novel diagnostic for the risk of preterm birth.