Congratulations to undergraduate researcher Brittney Murugeson (BIOE '21) who was awarded MTech's ASPIRE Scholarship for Fall 2018! This award will provide her with a stipend for her research in our lab on the effects of cold atmospheric plasma on tumor cell migration and morphology. Congrats, Brittney, and thank you to MTech for the support!

Dr. Stroka was selected to receive the 2018 Fischell Department of Bioengineering Faculty Teaching Award. Thanks for this honor!

Yesterday the Fischell Department of Bioengineering held its first ever graduate student-faculty retreat. It was a great day filled with excellent talks by graduate students, team-building activities, and career talks by faculty. All 4 PhD students in the Stroka lab gave presentations on their current research. Congratulations to 4th-year PhD student Mary Doolin, who won the award "Best Student Presentation" at the retreat! Mary's talk was about her novel fabricated micropillar device for confining cells in three dimensions.

Congratulations to undergraduate student Thea Ornstein (BIOE '19) for being selected to receive the BMES Student Travel Award! This award will provide funds to support her travel to the annual BMES Meeting in Atlanta, GA, in October. Thea will be presenting her research on nuclear confinement at the meeting. Congrats, Thea!

Congratulations to PhD student Kelsey Gray, who was selected to receive the BMES Career Development Award! This award will provide complimentary registration to the 2018 annual BMES Meeting, as well as $600 towards travel expenses for the conference. Congrats, Kelsey!

Congratulations to PhD students Marina (Shumakovich) Pranda, Kelsey Gray, and Becca Moriarty, who were selected to give oral presentations at the annual BMES Meeting in October!

Also congratulations to undergraduate student Thea Ornstein (BIOE '19) who will be presenting a poster at the meeting! 

Also note - Dr. Stroka is chairing the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Track for the conference, and our very own Department Chair John Fisher is this year's BMES Meeting Co-Chair!

We are all looking forward to the meeting!

This afternoon Dr. Stroka gave an invited talk at John Hopkins University Institute for NanoBiotechnology.  Dr. Stroka presented the lab's recent work on how cues from the blood-brain barrier alter the migration of metastatic breast tumor cells. Thanks to JHU INBT for the chance to share our work and catch up with old friends!

The lab has been awarded a UMD/NCI Partnership for Integrative Cancer Research Grant! This grant is for work in collaboration with Voula Milli at NCI and will fully support PhD student Becca Moriarty for the next year, renewable up to 3 years. Thank you to UMD and NCI for support of our work through this program!

We have been awarded a Tier 1 grant from the University of Maryland! This grant will support some new efforts to understand the mechanobiology of induced pluripotent stem cell-derived brain endothelial cells. Thank you, UMD!

Dr. Stroka and Ph.D. students Kelsey Gray and Mary Doolin were invited to celebrate recent Grad School Awards at a reception. Kelsey Gray received the Dr. Mabel S. Spencer Award for Excellence in Graduate Achievement in 2017, and also was the 2nd place winner in the 2018 3 Minute Thesis Competition. Mary Doolin was awarded a Graduate Student Summer Research Fellowship in 2017. Dr. Stroka was awarded the Research and Scholarship Award for summer 2017. Thank you to the UMD Graduate School for the continued support of our research!