A huge congratulations goes to Dr. Rebecca Moriarty, who defended her PhD earlier this summer and recently accepted a position as a Research Scientist at Vertex, in their disease modeling group. We will miss you, Becca, but Vertex is gaining an amazing employee!!!

PhD student Ian Smith gave a 5-minute talk on aquaporins and cell migration at today's BIOE Retreat. Great job, Ian, and thanks for getting us excited about aquaporins!

We are excited to welcome Ken Brandon (MD/PhD student) and Shohini Banerjee (PhD student) into the lab, both as Clark Doctoral Fellows!!! You can read more about Ken and Shohini on the "Team" page. Welcome, Ken and Shohini!!!

Dr. Stroka has been awarded a $1.9M NIGMS Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (R35)! This 5-year grant will support new lab projects related to cell migration. Thank you to NIH and NIGMS for supporting our work!

Read the BIOE news story here!

Congratulations to Becca Moriarty, who successfully defended her PhD dissertation on July 13! Becca's dissertation was focused on understanding the effects of mechanical confinement on cancer cell growth and migration mechanisms.

Becca has published her dissertation work in 3 scientific journal articles, with 2 additional manuscripts in revision or under review. She has presented her work at 7 conferences, including the BMES Annual Meeting, the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Conference, and the American Society for Cell Biology Meeting. Becca is a recipient of the Cancer Research Training Award fellowship, through which she participated in the NCI/UMD Partnership for Integrated Cancer Research and conducted her PhD research jointly between Dr. Kim Stroka’s lab at UMD and Dr. Voula Mili’s lab at NCI. Becca was awarded the Goldhaber Travel Award and the Graduate Student Summer Research Fellowship, both from the UMD Graduate School. Becca served as the Academic Affairs Vice President for the Bioengineering Graduate Student Society (BGSS) for two years. Becca has also been a dedicated mentor for high school students through the Program to Enhance Participation in Research and for undergraduate students through the Stroka lab. 
 
A huge congratulations to Becca - we are going to miss you!

Congratulations to Ariana DeCastro, who passed her PhD proposal exam and now advances to PhD candidacy! Over the next 2 years, Ariana will focus on understanding mechanisms of organotropic triple negative breast cancer cell metastasis. Congratulations, Ariana!

Dr. Stroka has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure, effective July 1, 2021! A huge thank you goes to all lab members, students, and past and present mentors and colleagues who have made this possible! 

Welcome to Ben Angeles and Allison Moses, who have joined the lab for the summer through our NSF REU program! Welcome, Ben and Allison!

Congratulations to PhD student Ariana DeCastro, who was chosen by the Clark School of Engineering to move forward in the 3 Minute Thesis Competition! Ariana will win a cash prize and move on to the University-wide 3MT competition in April! Congratulations, Ariana!!!

Congratulations to undergraduate researcher Cole Dwiggins (BIOE '22) who has been awarded an ASPIRE Fellowship from MTech to support his research in Spring 2021! Cole joined the lab last fall and is working on developing methods to quantitatively analyze local permeability maps for iPSC-derived brain microvascular endothelial cells. Congratulations, Cole!