Ph.D. Candidate, Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Computation Approaches to Understanding Cardiac Arrhythmia

PFTF Project Title:  “Explain it to a Fifth Grader: Developing Scientific Communication Through Community Outreach”

Jenna Harvestine was recently selected as a 2017-2018 Business Development Fellow, a year-long program providing UC Davis graduate and postdoctoral students hands-on experience in developing business skills for a career in industry or to develop new business ventures.

Anita Rajamani, a Ph.D. candidate with a focus on nutrition and cardiovascular diseases, is a recipient of the 2017-2018 Keller Pathway Fellowship. This year-long fellowship program provides women, cross-disciplinary researchers and other underrepresented university-based entrepreneurs a foundation for developing their business ideas.  Anita hopes to understand the differences in biochemical composition of circulating lipoproteins in response to diet as a function of an individual’s likelihood to develop atherosclerosis. In addition to research, Anita enjoys teaching and mentoring.

Amy Becker, a 1st year Ph.D. student in Biomedical Engineering under the mentorship of Dr. John Boone, was recently selected for the 2017 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

On May 19th we hosted the 6th Annual UC Davis Biomedical Engineering Graduate Group Student Research Conference. Our keynote speaker, Professor Claudia Fischbach from Cornell University, gave a wonderful talk highlighting her career path and the need for interdisciplinary, collaborative research. The day was well-attended by students at all levels, along with many faculty, and the quality of research displayed in the oral and poster presentations was truly impressive.

We congratulate the following students who received special recognition for their presentations:

The College of Engineering’s Awards Committee has selected Dr. Eric Berg as the winner of the 2017 Zuhair A. Munir Award for Best Doctoral Dissertation.

Berg’s award-winning dissertation, “Detectors, Algorithms, and Scanner Technology for Total-Body PET,” focuses on developing a whole new paradigm for medical imaging.

Congratulations to Oybek Kholiqov for submitting a winning application to the Edmund Optics 2016 Educational Award—an award given in recognition of outstanding undergraduate and graduate optics programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics at non-profit colleges and universities worldwide.

Congratulations to Sara Sukenik for winning first place in the graduate division of the 2016 International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) Student Poster Competition held in Atlanta, GA on September 18-21, 2016! Sara qualified to compete at the international level by first winning the San Francisco Bay Area ISPE chapter’s local competition. Her winning poster was titled “Modeling Monoclonal Antibody Production in Nicotiana Benthamiana Plant Cell Suspension Culture”. Sara is a Ph.D.

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has presented its 2016 Lifetime Excellence in Research Award to Susan M. Stover, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVS, of the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), School of Veterinary Medicine.

Stover, who received the award at the 2016 Merial-NIH National Veterinary Scholars Symposium, was recognized for her lifetime achievement in applied and clinical research, which focuses on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of musculoskeletal injuries, predominantly in horses, but also in small animals.

Chris Chapman recently received the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program’s Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide (GROW) award.  The GROW award provides travel and research funding for international research collaboration.  Chris plans to spend the next year abroad working at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.  The title of his project is “Towards Translating Silver Nanowire-PDMS Composite Microelectrode Arrays to Intracranial Records Arrays: In Vitro Characterization of Neural Coupling and Recording Fidelity as well as In Vivo Insertion Design."

Rafael Shimkunas, Ph.D. Candidate in the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Group, receives the F31 Predoctoral Individual NRSA Grant Award from the National Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health to study mechano-chemo transduction in the single rabbit cardiomyocyte contracting in cross-linked 3D viscoelastic gel.  Congratulations!

Erkin Seker, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was selected as one of 12 BMES Young Innovators for 2016. His work entitled “Mechanisms of Reduced Astrocyte Surface Coverage in Cortical Neuron-Glia Co-cultures on Nanoporous Gold Surfaces” and co-authored by BMEGG PhD candidate Chris Chapman, will be included in the Young Innovator Issue of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering and will be presented in a special session at the Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting in Minneapolis.

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!