Brief Biography - I received my bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah in 2001 and my master’s degree from Auburn University in 2007, both in chemical engineering. After earning my B.S., I worked full-time for Northrop Grumman as a systems engineer for five years, and later part-time for Sandia National Laboratories as a graduate student intern for two years. I am currently working toward a PhD in chemical engineering, co-advised by Prof. Heather Canavan in the UNM School of Engineering and Prof. Diane Lidke at the UNM School of Medicine.
Research Interests Description - My research interests include biomaterials, nanotechnology, and surface and interfacial science. In particular, I am investigating the fundamental mechanism of how mammalian cells detach from poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) (pNIPAM), a thermo-responsive polymer. This unusual behavior has potential applications in tissue engineering, biosensors, and cancer cell biology. However, due to health concerns associated with the NIPAM monomer, pNIPAM-based technologies will be limited until it is proven that the cells do not remove the polymer as they detach, hence there is a motivation to study the mechanism of detachment. I am using a mixture of traditional surface analysis techniques (e.g., X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, electron microscopy), as well as novel biophysical techniques (e.g., semiconducting nanocrystals, or quantum dots, for fluorescence imaging).