Panitch came to Purdue in 2006 as an associate professor of biomedical engineering. She was named associate head of research for the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue in 2009. Prior to coming to Purdue, she was assistant professor and associate professor of bioengineering at Arizona State University.

Her research focuses on designing biological and synthetic materials for drug delivery and tissue engineering as well as developing peptide-based pharmaceuticals for restoring normal healing of vascular, neural and fibrotic diseases.

Panitch launched three successful startup companies and was the first faculty entrepreneur-in-residence at Discovery Park's Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship from 2010-2012. She has received the NSF Career Award and has been a Purdue Faculty Scholar. She served on the biomaterials and biointerfaces study section for the National Institutes of Health from 2008-2012 and in 2011 was elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineers College of Fellows. She has been on the editorial advisory board for Biomacromolecules since 2004 and on the editorial board of Biomatter since 2010.

She earned bachelor's degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and in biochemistry from Smith College. She completed her doctorate at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.