Dr. Stroka has received a teaching innovation grant from the Office of the Provost to redesign her Biomechanics (BIOE404) course!

BIOE Honors student Samantha Kraus ('21) was chosen as a 2020-2021 Phillip Merrill Presidential Scholar and named Dr. Stroka as the "faculty mentor who has had the greatest impact on her academic achievement." Congratulations to Samantha!

This highly selective program is made possible by the generosity of the Philip Merrill family. It recognizes students’ academic excellence and the important role that teachers and faculty have as mentors. In addition to recognizing the seniors, the Philip Merrill Presidential Scholars program honors the K-12 teachers and University of Maryland faculty selected by the students themselves. For more information about the Merrill Scholars Program, visit their website. 

Congratulations to Dr. Mary Doolin, who defended her PhD today! Mary is the 3rd member of the Stroka Lab to earn her PhD!

Mary's PhD dissertation focused on how mechanical confinement influences mesenchymal stem cell cytoskeletal organization, migration mechanisms, and nuclear volume regulation. She developed a novel method for confining cells in a micropillar device, which she used to explore the effects of confinement on lung fibroblast to myofibroblast transition in the context of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Mary published 6 peer-reviewed publications (4 first-author; see her Google Scholar page) and gave 11 conference presentations. Mary was awarded the prestigious NIH F31 Predoctoral Fellowship from NHLBI. She was also awarded the Goldhaber Travel Award from the UMD Grad School twice, the Graduate Student Summer Research Fellowship, and the BMES Student Travel Award. Mary has been a dedicated mentor to several undergraduate students in the Stroka lab, and she has also been active in the Bioengineering Graduate Student Society, serving as Vice President of Professional Development for 2 years.

Congratulations, Dr. Doolin - fantastic work!

A special thanks to all the cats (and humans) who showed up to a post-defense Zoom celebration!

Congratulations to all BIOE seniors and great job on your Capstone design projects! Read more about the virtual presentation of the projects and award winners here. Go Terps!

A special congratulations to Dr. Stroka's team - Niall Cope, Maxwell Hakun, Connor Hall, John Fitzell, Chad Simon - on winning the "Advisory Board Award for Translational Design"! You all did a fantastic job!

Neal Kewalramani (BIOE '20), an undergraduate researcher in the Stroka Lab, has accepted a position in the Bioinformatics PhD program at Boston University! Congratulations, Neal!!!

Congratulations to PhD student Ariana DeCastro who has been awarded the Graduate Student Summer Research Fellowship from the UMD Graduate School! This award will provide extra support for her research on breast cancer metastasis this summer. Great job, Ariana!

Congratulations to Thea Ornstein (UMD BIOE alum '19 and former Stroka lab undergraduate researcher), who has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship! This is a well-deserved honor for Thea, and we are so proud of her! More about Thea's work in the Stroka lab here. Thea is currently pursuing her PhD at Georgia Tech in the lab of Dr. Khalid Salaita.

Recent PhD graduate, Dr. Kelsey Gray, has accepted a position as a Senior Scientist at Pfizer in Pearl River, NY! Congratulations, Kelsey - we are so excited for you!!!