Assistant Professor - Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
For my doctoral work at Yale University, I specialized in MRI cell tracking and contrast agent development for the diagnosis of glioblastoma multiforme, an invasive type of brain tumor. After completing my doctorate, I accepted a postdoctoral fellowship in the M+Visión Program, a collaborative venture between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and clinical laboratories in Madrid, Spain. One of my projects involved the early detection of ovarian cancer through identifying characteristics of precursor lesions that could be imaged using optical microscopy. During my second postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh, I developed an in vivo multiphoton microscopy technique called quantitative fluorescence intravital lung microscopy (qFILM) for visualizing blood cell trafficking within the pulmonary microcirculation of live sickle cell disease mice and received an NIH NRSA F32 Fellowship to pursue this work.
MRI and in vivo fluorescence imaging have many complimentary qualities and I am utilizing both imaging modalities in my research group at West Virginia University. The goal of the Biomedical Engineering Science Team (BESTeam) at WVU is to bridge biomedical engineering with biomedical science to explore the intersection of what is possible in biomedical imaging, biomaterials, nanotechnology, therapeutics, cancer biology and toxicology. We have two main areas of emphasis: 1) development of new targeted MRI nanoparticle contrast agents for early detection of breast cancer 2) application of spinning disk confocal microscopy for live lung vascular imaging of breast-to-lung metastasis and e-cigarette toxicology.
Education
Ph.D., Yale University, 2012
M.Phil., Yale University, 2011
M.S., Yale University, 2009
B.S., University of Pittsburgh, 2007