Graduate Student
University of Washington
Irina received her Bachelor of Science and Engineering in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Biochemistry at the University of Michigan in 2019, graduating summa cum laude. During her undergraduate degree, she conducted research in multiple laboratories, including Dr. Joerg Lahann’s group in the Biointerfaces Institute where she designed and characterized antibacterial surfaces made via ATRP and helped develop methods for patterning polymer brush growth, as well as Dr. Ariella Shikanov’s reproductive biomaterials lab, where she worked on creating hydrogel models to promote extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition and retention for follicular growth. She began her graduate studies in 2019 at the University of Washington Seattle in the laboratory of Dr. Cole DeForest, where her research is focused on developing dynamic biomaterial platforms for user-controlled mechanical modulation with applications in disease modeling and cell biology. Additionally, she has also worked on a collaboration project with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center to design a reductionist hydrogel platform for studying colorectal cancer interactions with the ECM. She is the recipient of the NSF GRFP award as well as the Stamps Scholarship at the University of Michigan.