Students

The College of Engineering’s Awards Committee has selected Jeni Lee as the winner of the 2016 Zuhair A. Munir Award for Best Doctoral Dissertation.

Lee is being honored for her research entitled, “Bioactive and Mechanical Stimuli for Engineering Neocartilage with Native Tissue-like Tensile Properties.”

Prof. Kyriacos Athanasiou was Lee’s mentor in the UC Davis Department of Biomedical Engineering.

May 19, 2016 marked our 5th annual Biomedical Engineering Graduate Group Student Research Conference.  Dean and Vice Chancellor Julie Freischlag opened the conference with a motivating Keynote Address on achieving career satisfaction in the health sciences.  The day was well-attended by students at all levels, and the quality of research displayed in the oral and poster presentations was truly impressive.

Congratulations again to the students who received special recognition for their presentations:

Jeff Lu, Ph.D. Candidate in Biomedical Engineering, was selected to receive the 2016 Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award for his multi-year efforts as a TA for the Biomedical Engineering senior design courses, BIM 110L, BIM 110A, and BIM 110B.  Jeff’s contribution to these courses, along with praise from students and instructors alike, were recognized during the 2016 Graduate Studies Honors and Awards Ceremony.  Congratulations, Jeff!

Jarrett Link, Ph.D. student in Biomedical Engineering, has been selected to receive a 2016 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Currently Jarrett’s research focuses on maintaining functional properties of self-assembled cartilage and enzymatically enhancing its integration to native cartilage in an inflammatory environment. Articular cartilage covers the ends of diarthrodial joints, such as the knee. It facilitates seamless motion and bears mechanical load.

It is my pleasure to announce this year’s BMEGG Outstanding Graduate Student Award goes to Jeni Lee from Prof. Kyriacos Athanasiou’s laboratory. While a doctoral student in the BME Graduate Group, Jeni has made significant advances in the laboratory to engineer functional cartilage replacement tissues for treatment of arthritis with the use of novel chemical and mechanical stimuli, with an overarching goal to translate the technology to the clinical setting.

Our 4th annual Biomedical Engineering Graduate Group Student Research Conference, held on May 15, 2015, was a wonderful day of research and discussion highlighting our outstanding students.  Professor Victor Barocas from the University of Minnesota kicked off the event with a terrific plenary talk. The day was well-attended by students at all levels, and the quality of research displayed in the oral and poster presentations was truly impressive.

Congratulations again to the students who received special recognition for their presentations:

Brent Foster, a 1st year BME PhD Student in Professor Chaudhari’s Laboratory, has been selected by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) as a 2015-2016 fellowship award recipient.  The NSF GRFP will provide Brent with 3 years of funding to pursue his research project which aims to create an open-source 3D statistical representation of the healthy anatomy of the wrist structures. This representation will enable an analysis of the morphological variation in wrists across the population.

Priscilla Williams, Ph.D. Candidate in Professor Silva’s Lab, has been selected as recipient of an American Heart Summer 2014 Predoctoral Fellowship. Priscilla’s research aims to design a biomaterial system to recruit circulating endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) to ischemic tissue after intravenous injection for therapeutic angiogenesis. This greater understanding of human EPC homing and angiogenesis will help elucidate the mechanisms responsible for ischemic vascular diseases.

Jenna Harvestine, a 1st year BME PhD Student in Professor Leach’s Laboratory, has been selected as a recipient of a 2015 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship.  The NDSEG Fellowship will provide Jenna with 3 years of funding to pursue research in biomaterials and bone tissue engineering.  This work may be of benefit to injured service members and veterans of the United States Armed Forces.

Congratulations to Robin Cumming (Sutcliffe Lab) for her selection at the  UC Davis representative for the AAAS Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering workshop in Washington DC. Robin will attend a two-day workshop and then talk to members of Congress to advocate for the UC Davis and science and engineering research, hopefully convincing our legislature to increase funding research. 

Congratulations to Chris Chapman (Seker Lab) for being selected to participate in the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in summer 2015 in Lindau, Germany. Chris will represent UC Davis and enjoy the opportunity to engage 70 Nobel Laureates and network internationally with 650 other young researchers attending the meeting.

Kaitlin Murphy, Ph.D. Candidate in Professor Leach’s Lab, has been selected a recipient of a American Heart Summer 2014 Predoctoral Fellowship.  Kaitlin’s research will seek to identify cellular and physical cues to present to endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) that will improve capillary formation upon transplantation. The results of this study may provide a novel approach to promote blood vessel growth and limb salvage in diabetic patients.

Hussain Fatakdawala participated Friday, April 4th, in the campus-wide Interdisciplinary Graduate and Professional Student Symposium (IGPS) and won the Dean’s Prize for Best Oral Presentation in Engineering for his presentation entitled “Imaging coronary arteries using a bimodal catheter combining fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) and intra-vascular ultrasound (IVUS)”.

BME Graduate students Pasha Hadidi of the Athanasiou Lab and Yu (Charlie) Ouyang of the Cherry Lab co-authors on a recently published Science paper “Total Synthesis of a Functional Designer Eukaryotic Chromosome” describing the world’s first synthetic eukaryotic chromosome. As undergraduate students at the Johns Hopkins University in 2008, Hadidi and Ouyang, along with their fellow classmates, performed synthesis, cloning, and sequence analysis of DNA as part of a multidisciplinary team lead by Dr. Jef D. Boeke.

Christopher Chapman, Ph.D. student in Biomedical Engineering, has been selected to receive a 2014 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Currently Chris’s research focuses on an advanced material, nanoporous gold, due to its high surface area-to-volume ratio, ease of surface modification, tunable surface morphology, and electrical conductivity. In order to rapidly screen for the optimal material morphologies and surface chemistries that enhance biological response and electrophysiological performance, he is engineering a micro-chip-based high-throughput electrode testing platform.