Undergraduates Converge at Penn for REU

REU
This year’s summer students

This past summer, 10 undergraduate from 10 colleges came to Penn for 10 weeks (May 30 to August 4) for the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE), also known as the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU). During the program, the students were hosted in the laboratories of faculty in Penn’s Schools of Engineering and Applied Science (including Penn Bioengineering faculty Beth Winkelstein, Dan Huh, and Jason Burdick) and Arts and Sciences and the Perelman School of Medicine. These students were hosted under the aegis of the Center for Engineering MechanoBiology (CEMB), a National Science Foundation-funded collaboration among Penn, Washington University (WashU) in St. Louis, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Alabama State University, Bryn Mawr College, Boston University, and the University of Texas at Austin.

The students all worked on individual research projects. At the end of the 10-week term, three abstracts from this research were chosen for presentation at the forthcoming annual meeting of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), which will be held October 11-14 in Phoenix. The three students are Kimberly DeLuca (NJIT), John Durel (Univ. of Virginia), and Olivia Leavitt (Worcester Polytech).

The CEMB Web site at WashU has a nice page up featuring the program and this summer’s students.

https://cemb.wustl.edu/penns-2017-summer-undergraduate-research-experience-at-a-glance/

Setton Named WashU BME Chair

Setton
Lori A. Setton, Ph.D.

Lori A. Setton, Ph.D., a major innovator in the field of tissue regeneration and repair and a member of the Penn Bioengineering Departmental Advisory Board, has been named chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Her appointment begins on August 1.

An alumna of Princeton (BSE) and Columbia (MS, Ph.D.) with degrees in mechanical engineering, Dr. Setton was on the faculty at Duke until 2015, when she moved to WashU. Over the last decade or so, she has coauthored nearly 150 peer-reviewed research papers in the field of biomedical engineering, establishing a sterling reputation as a scientist and researcher.

In addition to her distinguished career in research and academia, she is also the current president of BMES, where she has been a pioneer in fostering greater diversity within the field, both in instituting a partnership with the National Society for Black Engineers (NSBE) and as a mentor at Duke, where the introduction of a mentoring program to increase diversity among under-represented minorities has been particularly successful.

“We are thrilled that Lori was recognized with this significant leadership opportunity,” said David Meaney, Ph.D., chair of the Bioengineering Department at Penn. “As a key academic on our department advisory board, Lori’s incisive input on Penn Bioengineering has been invaluable as we grow and change as a department. I know she will be an outstanding leader for WashU.”