The biggest long-term impact of our NSF engineering research center is our students. They are critical not only to the current state of our center, but also our future.
CMaT has graduate students working on CMaT research in their labs, going on cross-CMaT (national and international) sabbaticals, attending the annual CMaT retreat, presenting at poster sessions, etc.
2024 Summer Program Spotlight
Carolina Colón participated in an 8-week research experience at Osaka University’s Biotechnology lab in Japan. She collaborated with Dr. Masahiro Kino-oka’s lab, which consisted of over 20 graduate students across five different projects. Her research focused on microgravity culture effects on cells using a specialized instrument called the GRAVITE, available in limited labs, including those in Japan and the Kennedy Space Center. Carolina's work explored the effects of microgravity and cryopreservation on cell therapies, particularly for long-term space missions, honing into her research interest of intersecting the fields of biology and aerospace engineering. She is currently working on a paper to publish the findings from this experience and has improved her Japanese!
2019 Summer Program Spotlight
Three of our graduate students participated in international sabbaticals in 2019. Our first CMaT international research exchange student arrived in Japan in June of 2019. Brian Liu partnered with Osaka University and worked under the guidance of Dr. Masahiro Kino-oka.
Our second CMaT international research exchange student, Emily Pendleton, traveled to Ireland in the fall of 2019. Emily partnered with the National University of Ireland-Galway under Dr. Frank Barry.
Our third and final international research exchange student of 2019 was Nicole Piscopo. Nicole partnered with the University of British Columbia in the Stem Cell Bioengineering Lab of Peter Zandstra.
