Education and Outreach
Dr. Stroka's courses
Undergraduate:
Biomechanics (BIOE404)
Stem Cell Engineering (BIOE413)
Bioengineering Design and Teamwork (BIOE386)
BIOE Honors Seminar (BIOE489H)
Graduate:
Cell and Tissue Biomechanics (BIOE602)
Advanced Stem Cell Engineering (BIOE613)
Biomechanics (BIOE404)
Stem Cell Engineering (BIOE413)
Bioengineering Design and Teamwork (BIOE386)
BIOE Honors Seminar (BIOE489H)
Graduate:
Cell and Tissue Biomechanics (BIOE602)
Advanced Stem Cell Engineering (BIOE613)
Research skills workshops
Dr. Stroka has developed a comprehensive series of workshops focusing on research and professional skills. Topics include responsible conduct of research, reproducibility and rigor, experimental design and analysis, reading scientific literature, data transparency and creating publication quality figures, giving scientific presentations, creating and giving poster talks, networking, and time management. She originally developed these workshops to train her own lab but has also used them to train undergraduate students in UMD BIOE's NSF REU Program and the Bioengineering Honors Program. We are now updating and reformatting these workshops to be shared more broadly to other researchers for research training!
A new Podcast!
Dr. Stroka is starting a podcast! More information coming soon!
Partnerships with Rural High SChools
We are forming partnerships with rural high schools where students would benefit from learning more about STEM fields. Our first partnership has been with Western Wayne High School in Northeastern Pennsylvania and started with a "webinar" interaction between Dr. Stroka and Chemistry, Physics, and Biology high schools students at Western Wayne. Dr. Stroka's talk was titled "Engineering Your Career" and discussed what engineers do, what bioengineering is, job opportunities for bioengineers, and how to prepare for a career in bioengineering. Dr. Stroka also shared a bit about the lab's current research. We are looking forward to expanding this partnership and bringing more knowledge about STEM fields and careers to high school students in rural areas!
Women in Engineering Camps
We participate in UMD's Women in Engineering (WIE) Camp program, which brings female high school students to UMD during the summer in order to introduce them to different Engineering disciplines. Dr. Stroka led sessions for this program nearly every summer while she was a PhD student at UMD, and now continues the outreach opportunity in her own lab. This past summer, the entire lab (PhD students, undergrads, and Dr. Stroka) helped organize and lead a session of this WIE Camp within our lab. We discussed our own pathways to Bioengineering with the students and then led demonstrations about cell culture, preparing microfluidic devices, and microscopy for the students. This is a great opportunity for female high school students to gain an early appreciation for engineering fields! Read more about the Women in Engineering programs for high school students here.
Capstone Design
Teams Mentored by Dr. Stroka
2021 Team - won "MPower Award for Outstanding Collaboration between UMD and UMB" for their project "Telerehabilitation platform to analyze 3D movement of stroke patients performing occupational tasks"
2020 Team - won "Advisory Board Award for Translational Design" for their project "3D-Printed Adjustable Cast for Children with Clubfoot"
2018 Team "KABAE" - won 3rd Place Overall at Senior Capstone Day!
2017 Team "Esophacool" - won "Best Poster Award"!
2016 Team "microVax"