Announcements

Marianne Sleiman who was an REU student at Rensselaer during the summer of 2013 has received a Barry Goldwater Scholarship. She worked with Guohao Dai during her time at RPI on "Development of a Hydrogel System to present EphrinB2 and EphB4 Signals for controlling Arterial Venous Differentiation". The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by the United States Congress in 1986 in honor of former United States Senator and 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater from Arizona.

Guohao Dai has been awarded the NSF Career Award for his proposal entitled "Engineer a functional 3-D vascular niche to regulate neural stem cell self-renewal and differentiation". The CAREER Award is given to faculty members at the beginning of their academic careers and is one of NSF’s most competitive awards, placing emphasis on high-quality research and novel education initiatives. The award speaks towards the exciting and cutting edge research program that Guohao has developed at Rensselaer. Guohao is the 7th NSF Career Awardee in Biomedical Engineering here at RPI!

Leo Wan has received the Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Research Award by the March of Dimes Foundation for his proposal "Role of Nodal Signaling in Epithelial Chiral Morphogenesis". As part of the award, Leo Wan will receive $150,000 over two years. It is the mission of the March of Dimes to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. More information about the March of Dimes can be found on their web site: http://www.marchofdimes.com/

Ryan Gilbert has been named an associate editor for the journal 'Cells Tissues Organs'. This journal aims at bridging the gap between cell biology and developmental biology and the emerging fields of regenerative medicine (stem cell biology, tissue engineering, artificial organs, in vitro systems and transplantation biology). The journal has been published since 1945, making it one of the older journals in this field. The journal web site can be found here: http://www.karger.com/Journal/Home/224197

Ge Wang has been appointed to the Board of Associate Editors of the Medical Physics Journal. The journal web page can be found here: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapm/journal/medphys Medical Physics is the scientific journal of the American Association of Physics in Medicine and is an official science journal of the Canadian Organization of Medical Physics, the Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine, and the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP).

Nine faculty members of the Biomedical Engineering Department were honored at the 2013 Trustee Celebration. This is an excellent number for the department and highlights the stature of BME in the institute. Specifically, the honored faculty were: - Ryan Gilbert (promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure) - Ge Wang (appointed as John A. Clark and Edward T.

The work was completed by first author Jonathan Zuidema (RPI Gisser Prize winner and Ph.D. alumnus (2014)). Undergraduate BMED alumni Christina Provenza and Tyler Caliendo (both 2014) are co-authors. Collaborator Dr. Silvio Dutz (Head of Magnetic Nanoparticles Group - Ilmenau University of Technology, Germany) provided iron oxide nanoparticles for the study. The study demonstrates the capability of aligned, electrospun fibers and magnetically moveable nerve growth factor releasing polymer spheres to direct the outgrowth of neurites.

Eight biomedical engineering students will be honored with Rensselaer's Founders awards. The award recipients are: Sophomore :Lucas R. Hearn and Cara E. Yocum Junior: Kelly J. O’Brien Senior: Colleen P. Healey, Rebecca D. Pomrenke, and Melanie F. Roberts Graduate Student: Taylor B. Dorsey, Joshua M. Peterson, and Kathryn E. Worley The Founders Award of Excellence was established in 1994 to honor students who embody qualities of creativity, discovery, leadership, and the values of pride and responsibility at Rensselaer.