Principal Investigator


Karen L. Christman, Ph.D 
Professor of Bioengineering
Associate Dean for Faculty, Jacobs School of Engineering
Pierre Galletti Endowed Chair for Bioengineering Innovation
Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine
University of California, San Diego
Education
B.S. in Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University
Ph.D. in Bioengineering, UC Berkeley and San Francisco
Postdoc in Polymer Chemistry, UCLA

Selected Awards/Honors
NIH NHLBI Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2005-2007
NIH Director's New Innovator Award, 2008
Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Early Career Translational Research Award, Phase I 2009, Phase II 2011
AHA Western States Innovative Sciences Award, 2012
TERMIS-Americas Young Investigator Award, 2012
NIH Director's Transformative Research Award, 2012
National Academy of Eng'g U.S. Frontiers in Eng'g Invitee, 2013
Fellow of the American Heart Association, 2014
Fellow of AIMBE, 2016
Biocom Life Science Catalyst Award, 2017
TERMIS Senior Scientist Award, 2018
BMES Fellow, 2020
SFB Clemson Award for Applied Research, 2021


Staff Research Associates
  


Rebecca Braden, M.S.
Lab Manager



Colin Luo, M.S. 
Research Associate
Research Scientists and Visiting Scholars



Roberto Gaetani, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
B.S. in Medical and Molecular Biotech,
Ph.D in Pasteurian Science,
Sapienza Univ. of Rome - IT
Assistant Professor - University of Rome




Graduate Students
     
                                                                                                                                                          


Jervaughn Hunter
B.S. in BME, UAB
Ph.D. Candidate
Siebel Scholar
NIH F31 Predoctoral Fellow
 ARCS Fellow
Sloan Scholar


Emma Zelus
B.S. in BioE, UCSD
Ph.D. Candidate


Josh Mesfin
B.S. in BioE, MIT
Ph.D. Candidate
AHA Predoctoral Fellow
ARCS Fellow
 Sloan Scholar

         


Maria Karkanitsa
B.Sc. in Biomedical Sciences,  
Kings College London
Ph.D. Student
NSF GRFP


Bianca Peña
B.S. in BME,  
Washington University in St. Louis 
Ph.D. Student
Interfaces Trainee
Sloan Scholar
 

Alexander Chen
B.S. in MatSci,  Georgia Tech
Ph.D. Student
Interfaces Trainee

         


Danna Du
B.S. in BME,  
University of Virginia
M.S. Student

Sejal Suri
B.S. in BME, 
University of Delaware
Ph.D. Student
NSF GRFP
 



Undergraduate Students

Tanzeel Ahmed
Isha Deshmukh
Ryan Truong
Elyse Wong
Julian Cheng
Sriya Paleti
Hillary Tran
Estefania Enciso-Pelayo
Joshua Tesoro
Selena Ca