Last night I (Dr. Stroka) was thrilled and honored to receive the Outstanding Young Scientist Award from the Maryland Academy of Sciences! The awards ceremony was held at the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore.

THANK YOU to the Maryland Academy of Sciences, Maryland Science Center, and the generous gift from Reverend Frank R. Haig to support the award.
​THANK YOU to our Department Chair, Dr. John Fisher, for nominating me for this award! 
THANK YOU to all of my mentors throughout the years, including faculty at Denison University where I began my journey as a scientist, Dr. Helim Aranda-Espinoza (PhD advisor), Dr. Kostas Konstantopoulos (Postdoc advisor), Dr. Bill Bentley, Dr. John Fisher, my labmates through the years, the current students in my lab, my family, and so many others who have mentored, supported, and encouraged me throughout the years. Nothing would be possible without these people!

Read the press release from the Maryland Science Center here.
​Read more about the OYS/OYE Award and recipients here.
Read the UMD BIOE news story here.
Check out Dr. Stroka in UMD's GradTerp magazine's "Where are they now?" here.
Also check out an article in the Capital Gazette here.

Also check out this video (put together by the Maryland Science Center) about the Stroka Lab for this event!

PhD student Kelsey Gray has been selected to receive the 2018 "Shooting Star Award" from the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Conference! As part of this award, Kelsey will give a talk (and poster) on her research at the 2018 CMBE Conference in Key Largo, FL, and she will also receive a complimentary conference registration and $500 travel award. At the conference, Kelsey will be presenting her work titled, "Electrodeposition of PEG-Hyaluronan-Gelatin Hydrogels to  Spatiotemporally Control Cell Matrices for Mechanobiological Study."

Congratulations, Kelsey!

Labmates Marina Shumakovich, Mary Doolin, and Becca Moriarty also had abstracts selected for poster presentations at the conference! The Stroka Lab will be representing at CMBE this year! Looking forward to it!

We celebrated fall with a costume contest, pumpkin carving contest, and cooking contest! (we are not competitive at all...) Click here for more pictures and winners!

Today our department celebrated the opening of our new building - A. James Clark Hall - with an exciting and inspiring dedication ceremony. The Stroka Lab would like to express our sincerest thanks to the Clark family, the Fischell family, the State of Maryland, and all other donors who contributed immense resources to make this dream become a reality for our department. We are excited to move into our new labspace and offices soon!

Our very own PhD student, Kelsey Gray, spoke at the ceremony and was featured in the Clark Hall video (see below), which debuted at the ceremony. The Baltimore Sun also recently published a story featuring Kelsey's comments about Clark Hall. Great job, Kelsey!

Video credit goes to Alyssa Wolice, BIOE Assistant Director of Communications
Photo credit goes to John T. Consoli/University of Maryland