Principal Investigator
Samira M. Azarin
Associate Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 612-301-3488
B.S., Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006
Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2011
Postdoc, Chemical Engineering, Northwestern University, 2012-2014
Graduate Students
Lina Abu-Absi
Education: B.S., Chemical Engineering and Biochemistry. Northeastern University, 2024
Contact: [email protected]
Research Interests: My research focuses on advancing the biomanufacturing of natural killer cells to enable the success of more affordable and accessible "off-the-shelf" cell therapies for cancer treatment.
Sri Aashrita Boddu
Education: B.Tech., Metallurgical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi, 2024
Co-advised with Vivian Ferry
Contact: [email protected]
Research Interests: My research combines optical biosensing with concepts of chirality to examine how optically active metamaterials could lead to improved sensitivity toward chiral biomolecules of significant interest to the group.
Zi-Ting Feng
Education: B.S., Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, 2019; M.S., Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, 2021
Email: [email protected]
Research Interests: My research centers around biomaterial-based immunotherapy for ovarian cancer, focusing on developing biomaterials that can recruit and eliminate cancer cells to trigger in situ vaccination responses.
Andrew Frederickson
Education: B.S., Chemical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, 2017
Co-advised with Alptekin Aksan
Contact: [email protected]
Research Interests: My research utilizes novel biomaterials to investigate the mechanisms contributing to cellular dormancy in ovarian cancer in order to develop more effective cancer therapies.
Anushka Garg Mandal
Education: B.Tech./M.Tech., Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, 2023; M.S. Aerosol Science and Engineering, Washingon University St. Louis, 2023
Co-advised with Qi Zhang
Contact: [email protected]
Research Interests: My research focuses on developing a computational model for metabolism in NK cells to gain insights into the relationship between NK cell effector function and metabolism.
Aditi Karmaker
Education: B.S. Chemical Engineering, Texas Tech University, 2022
Contact: [email protected]
Research Interests: My research focus is to work on ultrasound-mediated destruction of metastatic ovarian cancer cells with the help of nanomaterials.
Jared Martini
Education: B.S., Biomedical Engineering, Michigan Tech University, 2022; M.S., Biomedical Engineering, Michigan Tech University, 2023
Contact: [email protected]
Research Interests: My research involves development of novel blood-brain barrier models to study the mechanisms of cancer spread to the brain, as well as aid in understanding of various neurological disorders.
Pranati Mondkar
Education: B.S., Chemical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2019
Co-advised with Timothy Lodge
Contact: [email protected]
Research Interests: My research integrates soft materials and biological systems to better understand the mechanisms by which polymeric therapies restore cellular function in neurological injuries and diseases.
Janani Narayan
Education: B.S. Chemical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, 2019
Co-advised with Wei-Shou Hu
Contact: [email protected]
Research Interests: My research utilizes engineering approaches to scale up cell therapies by studying the NK cell-feeder cell interaction and applying insights to design a feeder-free system for significant expansion of NK cells.
Emily Rozich
Education: B.S., Biomedical Science, University of Michigan, 2020; M.S.E., Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, 2021
Contact: [email protected]
Research Interests: My research uses stem cell models to study the mechanisms by which synthetic polymers reduce ischemia-reperfusion injury in the cardiovascular system.
Joseph Vallin
Education: B.S., Chemical Engineering, Notre Dame University, 2018
Contact: [email protected]
Research Interests: My research seeks to understand fundamental mechanisms of the innate and adaptive immune response to focally ablated cancer cells, with the goal of improving upon in-situ cancer vaccines by designing supplemental, immune-activating biomaterials.
Group Alumni
1. Dr. Francisco Pelaez (Merck) - Ph.D. 2019
2. Dr. Hak Rae Lee (AbbVie) - Ph.D. 2020
3. Dr. Jennifer One (Bristol Myers Squibb) - Ph.D. 2020
4. Dr. Jeanette Caronia (Takeda) - Ph.D. 2020
5. Dr. Pedram Motallebnejad (Amgen) - Ph.D. 2020
6. Dr. Hannah Seo (Bristol Myers Squibb) - Ph.D. 2021
7. Dr. Tiffany Lam (Boston Scientific) - Ph.D. 2021
8. Dr. Qiuge Zhang (3M) - Ph.D. 2022
9. Dr. Harish Venkatachalapathy (Amgen) - Ph.D. 2023
10. Dr. Victoria Jones (3M) - Ph.D. 2024
11. Dr. Kristen Lemke (Exreprotein) - Ph.D. 2024
12. Dr. Paulina Eberts (Postdoc, MIT) - Ph.D. 2024