Tag: news

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Emeritus Faculty Member Susan Margulies Named NSF Directorate of Engineering

Susan Margulies, Ph.D. (Credit Emory University)

Susan Margulies, Professor Emeritus in Bioengineering, has been selected to lead the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate of Engineering, “the first biomedical engineer to head the directorate.” Margulies is chair of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. She earned her master’s and doctoral degrees from Penn Bioengineering before joining the department as an Assistant Professor in 1993.

In a press release from Emory University, Margulies stated that, “The opportunity to serve the NSF resonates with my values — catalyzing impact through innovation, rigor, partnership, and inclusion.” The announcement continues:

“Building on initiatives she developed at the University of Pennsylvania, Margulies prioritized career development for faculty and Ph.D. graduates during her years leading Coulter BME. She added dedicated staff to help doctoral students prepare for increasingly popular career paths outside of academia. The department increased the diversity of Ph.D. students and improved faculty diversity at all ranks during her tenure. Margulies oversaw hiring of 20 new faculty members and launched formalized mentoring for early career professors, including creating a new associate chair position dedicated to faculty development.”

Margulies will step down from her position as chair in Coulter BME though she will remain in the Georgia Tech and Emory faculty. Her Injury Biomechanics Lab studies “the influence of mechanical factors on the structure and function of human tissues from the macroscopic to microscopic level, with an emphasis on the brain and lungs.”

Read the full announcement in the Emory News Center.

Read the NSF press release here.

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Penn Bioengineering Graduate Shreya Parchure Receives Rose Award

Shreya Parchure (BSE/MSE 2021)

Shreya Parchure, a recent graduate of Penn Bioengineering, was selected by a committee of faculty for a 2021 Rose Award from the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF). The Rose Award recognizes outstanding undergraduate research projects completed by graduating seniors under the supervision of a Penn faculty member and carries with it a $1,000 award. Parchure’s project, titled “BDNF Gene Polymorphism Predicts Response to Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation (cTBS) in Chronic Stroke Patients,” was done under the supervision of Roy H. Hamilton, Associate Professor in Neurology and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and director of the Laboratory for Cognition and Neural Stimulation in the Perelman School of Medicine. Parchure’s work in Hamilton’s lab previously resulted in a 2020 Goldwater Scholarship.

Parchure graduated in Spring 2021 with a B.S.E. in Bioengineering, with concentrations in Neuroengineering and Medical Devices and a minor in Chemistry, as well as a M.S.E. in Bioengineering. During her time as an undergraduate, she was a Rachleff Scholar, a recipient of a Vagelos Undergraduate Research Grant, and the Wolf-Hallac Award. She was active in many groups across the university and beyond, serving as a United Nations Millennium Fellow, a volunteer with Service Link and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP), a CURF Research Peer Advisor, and co-editor-in-chief of the Penn Bioethics Journal. She is now pursuing a M.D./Ph.D. through the Medical Scientist Training Program at Penn Bioengineering and the Perelman School of Medicine.

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Katherine Reuther Appointed Practice Associate Professor in Bioengineering

Katie Reuther, PhD, MBA

Katherine (Katie) Reuther, Ph.D., M.B.A. will return to Penn Engineering in July 2021 as the new Executive Director of Penn Health-Tech (PHT) and as Practice Associate Professor in Bioengineering. Reuther is an alumna of Penn Bioengineering, having obtained her Ph.D. at Penn in the laboratory of Louis Soslowsky, Fairhill Professor in Bioengineering and Orthopaedic Surgery.

“Dr. Reuther is a role model for biomedical innovation, linking formal training in engineering and entrepreneurship with deep practical experience in leading technologies through the commercialization pipeline. Dr. Reuther graduated with her Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering, Magna cum Laude, from the College of New Jersey; she obtained her Ph.D. in Bioengineering at Penn in the laboratory of Dr. Louis Soslowsky and completed her MBA at Columbia, where she currently is a Senior Lecturer in Design, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. During her tenure at Columbia, Dr. Reuther helped create and led Columbia’s Biomedical Engineering Technology Accelerator (BiomedX), overseeing more than 60 technologies leading to $80M in follow-on funding and 18 licenses to start-ups or start-ups industry.  Introducing both new courses and a new curriculum in biomedical innovation, Dr. Reuther was recently awarded Columbia’s highest teaching honor, the ‘2021 Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching,’ this Spring as a recognition of her excellence in teaching and dedication to students.

Katie has extensive experience in developing and translating early-stage medical technologies and discoveries and providing formal educational training for aspiring medical entrepreneurs.  Dr. Reuther served as Director of Masters’ Studies for the Department of Biomedical Engineering and spearheaded the development of a graduate-level medical innovation program, including an interdisciplinary course available to scientists, engineers, and clinicians. Dr. Reuther provided advising and educational support to more than 100 student/faculty teams and start-ups, as they worked to develop and commercialize medical technologies. She will bring these extensive skills to PHT and Penn Bioengineering in two new, hands-on graduate courses in medical innovation centered around Penn Health-Tech ventures.”

Read the full announcement in OVPR news.

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César de la Fuente Featured in “40 Under 40” List

César de la Fuente, Ph.D.

César de la Fuente, PhD, Presidential Assistant Professor in Bioengineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Psychiatry, and Microbiology, was featured in the Philadelphia Business Journal’s Class of 2021 “40 Under 40” list. Currently focused on antibiotic discovery, creating tools for microbiome engineering, and low-cost diagnostics, de le Fuente pioneered the world’s first computer-designed antibiotic with efficacy in animal models.

De la Fuente was previously included in the AIChE’s “35 Under 35” list in 2020 and most recently published his work demonstrating a rapid COVID-19 diagnostic test which delivers highly accurate results within four minutes.

Read “40 Under 40: Philadelphia Business Journal’s complete Class of 2021” here.

Read other BE blog posts featuring Dr. de la Fuente here.

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Bioengineering Graduate Gabriel DeSantis Awarded Fulbright Grant

Gabriel DeSantis (BSE 2020, MSE 2021)

Congratulations to recent Penn Bioengineering graduate Gabriel DeSantis on being awarded a Fulbright grant for the 2021-22 academic year:

“The Fulbright Program is the United States government’s flagship international educational exchange program, awarding grants to fund as long as 12 months of international experience.

‘As an avenue for building cross-cultural understanding, the U.S. Student Fulbright Program is an unparalleled opportunity for American students to represent our country and our University across the world,’ says Jane Morris, executive director of Penn’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, which supports applicants. ‘We are so proud of all our Penn Fulbright students who will be contributing to this important mission through their study, research, and English teaching as Fulbrighters.’

Gabriel DeSantis, from Wellesley, Massachusetts, received his bachelor’s degree from Penn Bioengineering in 2020 and will graduate in May with a master’s degree in bioengineering from the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He was awarded a Fulbright to conduct research in Portugal at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory. There he will be creating a 3D bio-printed model to optimize the texture and nutritional profiles of cultivated meat. At Penn his academic interests included biology, food science, and sustainability, which he hopes to use to develop new systems of food production. On campus, DeSantis was a Penn Abroad Leader and board member of the Graduate Association of Bioengineers. He is a past chair of the Mask and Wig Club. He currently works as a research assistant for Allevi, a Philadelphia-based bioprinting company at Pennovation Works.”

Read the full list of Fulbright awardees in Penn Today.

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Claudia Loebel Appointed Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan

by Mahelet Asrat

Claudia Loebel, MD, PhD (Photo/Mel Evans)

The Department of Bioengineering is proud to congratulate Claudia Loebel, M.D., Ph.D. on her appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Loebel is part of the University of Michigan’s Biological Sciences Scholar program, which recruits junior instructional faculty in major areas of biomedical investigation. Loebel’s appointment will begin in Fall 2021.

Loebel got her M.D. in 2011 from Martin-Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg, Germany and her Ph.D. in Health Sciences and Technology from ETH Zurich, Switzerland in 2016. There she worked under her advisors Professors Marcy Zenobi-Wong from ETH Zurich and David Eglin from AO Research Institute Davos. At Penn, she conducted postdoctoral research in the Polymeric Biomaterials Laboratory of Jason Burdick, Robert D. Bent Professor in Bioengineering, and as a Visiting Research Scholar in the Mauck Laboratory of the McKay Orthopaedic Research Laboratory in the Perelman School of Medicine.

Loebel was awarded a K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which supports her remaining time as a postdoc as well as her time as an independent investigator at the University of Michigan. Loebel is excited about training the next generation of scientists and engineers and being part of their journey in becoming independent and diverse thinkers.

Loebel’s research area is inspired by the interface between material science and regenerative engineering and how it can address specific problems related to tissue development, repair, and regeneration. By developing mechanically and strucatally dynamic biomaterials, microfabrication, and matrix manipulation techniques her works aim to recreate complex cell-matrix interactions and model tissue morphogenesis and disease. The ultimate goal of her research is to use these engineered systems to develop and translate more effective therapeutic treatments for diseases such as fibrotic, inflammatory, and congenital disorders. Her lab’s work will initially focus on developing engineering lung alveolar organoids, aiming to build models of acute and chronic pulmonary diseases and for personalized medicine.

Loebel says, “I am grateful to all my Ph.D. and postdoc mentors for their continuous support and especially Jason who, over the last few years, has trained me in becoming an independent scientist and mentor. This transition would not have been possible without such a great mentor team behind me.”

Congratulations Dr. Loebel from everyone at Penn Bioengineering!

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David Meaney Receives 2021 Lindback Award

David F. Meaney, PhD

David F. Meaney is among the recipients of the 2021 Lindback Awards.

The Lindback Awards, announced annually, are the most prestigious teaching awards that full-time faculty members at the University can receive.

Meaney is the Solomon R. Pollack Professor in Bioengineering and Senior Associate Dean of Penn Engineering and his research areas span from traumatic brain injury to brain network theory. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering from Penn Engineering.

The Lindback Awards were established in 1961 with the help of the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation.

Congratulations to Dr. Meaney from everyone in Penn Bioengineering for this well-deserved honor!

Read more stories on the BE blog featuring Dr. Meaney.

Originally posted in Penn Engineering Today.

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Kevin Johnson Appointed Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor

Ron Ozio

Kevin Johnson, Penn’s 27th Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor.

Kevin Johnson has been named the University of Pennsylvania’s 27th Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor.

The announcement was made by Penn President Amy Gutmann and Provost Wendell Pritchett.

A pioneer of medical information technologies to improve patient safety, Johnson will hold joint appointments in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics in the Perelman School of Medicine and the Department of Computer and Information Science in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, with secondary appointments in the Annenberg School for Communication and in the Department of Bioengineering. He will also serve as vice president for applied informatics in the University of Pennsylvania Health System and professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“Kevin Johnson is a gifted physician-scientist,” Gutmann said, “who has harnessed and aligned the power of medicine, engineering, and technology to improve the health of individuals and communities. He has championed the development and implementation of clinical information systems and artificial intelligence to drive medical research, encouraged the effective use of technology at the bedside, and empowered patients to use new tools to better understand how medications and supplements may affect their health. He is a board-certified pediatrician, and his commitment to patient health and welfare knows no age limits. In so many different settings, Kevin’s work is driving progress in patient care and improving our health care system. He is a perfect fit for Penn, where our goal is to create a maximally inclusive and integrated academic community to spur unprecedented global impact.”

Johnson is currently the Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he has taught since 2002. He is a world-renowned innovator in developing clinical information systems that improve best practices in patient safety and compliance with medical practice guidelines, especially the use of computer-based documentation systems and other digital technologies. His research bridges biomedical informatics, bioengineering, and computer science. As senior vice president for health information technology at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center from 2014 to 2019, he led the development of clinical systems that enabled doctors to make better treatment and care decisions for individual patients, in part by alerting patients as to how medications or supplements might affect their body chemistry, as well as new systems to integrate artificial intelligence into patient care workflows and to unify and simplify all the Medical Center’s clinical and administrative systems.

The author of more than 150 publications, books, or book chapters, Johnson has held numerous leadership positions in the American Medical Informatics Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, leads the American Board of Pediatrics Informatics Advisory Committee, directs the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Library of Medicine, and is a member of the NIH Council of Councils. He has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine (Institute of Medicine), American College of Medical Informatics, and Academic Pediatric Society and has received awards from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and American Academy of Pediatrics, among many others.

“Kevin Johnson exemplifies our most profound Penn values,” Pritchett said. “He is a brilliant innovator committed to bringing together disciplines across traditional boundaries. Yet he always does so in the service of helping others, finding technological solutions that can make a tangible impact on improving people’s lives. He will be an extraordinary colleague, teacher and mentor across multiple areas of our campus in the years to come.”

Johnson earned an M.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, an M.S. in medical informatics from Stanford University, and a B.S. with honors in biology from Dickinson College. He became the first Black chief resident in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins in 1992, and was a faculty member in both pediatrics and biomedical information sciences at Johns Hopkins until 2002.

The Penn Integrates Knowledge program was launched by Gutmann in 2005 as a University-wide initiative to recruit exceptional faculty members whose research and teaching exemplify the integration of knowledge across disciplines and who are appointed in at least two Schools at Penn.

Originally posted in Penn Today.

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Penn Dental, Penn Engineering Unite to Form Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry

by Beth Adams

With the shared vision to transform the future of oral health care, Penn Dental Medicine and Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have united to form the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD). The new Center marked its official launch on January 22 with a virtual program celebrating the goals and plans of this unique partnership. Along with the Deans from both schools, the event gathered partners from throughout the University of Pennsylvania and invited guests, including the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research Director (NIDCR) Dr. Rena D’Souza and IADR Executive Director Chris Fox.

Conceived and brought to fruition by co-directors Dr. Michel Koo of Penn Dental Medicine and Dr. Kathleen Stebe of Penn Engineering, the CiPD is bridging the two schools through cutting-edge research and technologies to accelerate the development of new solutions and devices to address unmet needs in oral health, particularly in the areas of dental caries, periodontal disease, and head and neck cancer. The CiPD will also place a high priority on programs to train the next generation of leaders in oral health care innovation.

“We have a tremendous global health challenge. Oral diseases and craniofacial disorders affect 3.5 billion people, disproportionately affecting the poor and the medically and physically compromised,” says Dr. Koo, Professor in the Department of Orthodontics and Divisions of Community Oral Health and Pediatric Dentistry, in describing their motivation to form the Center. “There is an urgent need to find better ways to diagnose, prevent, and treat these conditions, particularly in ways that are affordable and accessible for the most susceptible populations. That is our driving force for putting this Center together.”

“We have united our schools around this mission,” adds Dr. Stebe, Richer & Elizabeth Goodwin Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. “We have formed a community of scholars to develop and harness new engineering paradigms, to generate new knowledge, and to seek new approaches that are more effective, precise, and affordable to address oral health. More importantly, we will train a new community of scholars to impact this space.”

Born through Interdisciplinary Research

A serendipitous connection born through Penn’s interdisciplinary research environment itself brought Drs. Koo and Stebe together more than five years ago, an introduction that would eventually lead to creating the CiPD.

Dr. Tagbo Niepa, now assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, came to Penn Engineering in 2014 as part of Penn’s Postdoctoral Fellowship for Academic Diversity, an initiative from the office of the Vice Provost for Research. His studies on the microbiome led him to reach out to Dr. Stebe and Dr. Daeyeon Lee (also at Penn Engineering), and to connect them to Dr. Koo, initiating collaboration between their labs.

“Tagbo embodies what we are trying to do with the CiPD,” recalls Dr. Stebe. “He had initiative, he identified new tools and important context, and he did good science that may help us understand how to interrupt the disease process and identify new underlying mechanisms that can inspire new therapies.” Dr. Niepa worked on applying microfluidics and engineering to study the oral microbiome and better understand how the interactions between fungi and bacteria could impact dental caries.

“Upon meeting Michel, we became excited about the possibilities of bringing talent from the two schools together,” notes Dr. Stebe. A 2018 workshop organized by Drs. Koo and Stebe and funded by Penn’s Vice Provost of Research explored the potential for expanding cross-school research. “We invited researchers from dental medicine and engineering as well as relevant people from the arts and sciences to see if we could find a way to collaborate to advance oral and craniofacial health,” says Dr. Koo. “That was the catalyst for the Center; after the workshop, we put together a task force which would become the core members of the CiPD.”

In addition to Drs. Koo and Stebe, the CiPD Executive Committee includes Associate Directors Dr. Henry Daniell, Vice-Chair and W.D. Miller Professor, Department of Basic & Translational Sciences, Penn Dental Medicine, and Dr. Anh Le, Chair and Norman Vine Endowed Professor of Oral Rehabilitation, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery / Pharmacology, Penn Dental Medicine; as well as Dr. Andrew Tsourkas, Professor, Department of Bioengineering, Co-Director, Center for Targeted Therapeutics & Translational Nanomedicine (CT3N) and Chemical and Nanoparticle Synthesis Core, Penn Engineering; and Dr. Jason Moore, Edward Rose Professor of Informatics, Director of the Penn Institute for Biomedical Informatics. The core members of CiPD include 26 faculty from across both Penn Dental Medicine and Penn Engineering, and also from the Schools of Medicine and Arts & Sciences.

Read the full story in Penn Today.

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In Memoriam: David Geselowitz, 1930-2020

David Geselowitz

Penn Engineering mourns the death of our former colleague Dr. David Geselowitz, who died on August 22, 2020. The Penn Engineering and Penn State communities have lost a brilliant scientist and researcher, and an extraordinary teacher, mentor and friend.

Dr. Geselowitz was born in Philadelphia in 1930, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in Electrical Engineering in 1951, 1954 and 1958, respectively. As the top student in his undergraduate class, he received the Atwater Kent Award.

After receiving his Ph.D., he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania and subsequently founded Penn’s doctoral program in biomedical engineering. In 1971, he moved to Penn State University to implement a graduate program in bioengineering.

Dr. Geselowitz was known for his contributions to the theory of the electrocardiogram (EKG) and the development of the artificial heart. As noted by the late Dr. Herman Schwan, “David was the best man I had met in electrocardiography work. The National Academy of Engineering recognized him for that work. He became a leader in the country in the field.”

For more on the life of Dr. Geselowitz, please see the tribute from his longtime colleagues at Penn State: https://news.engr.psu.edu/2020/geselowitz-david-obituary.aspx

This story originally appeared in Penn Engineering News.