Postdoc
NCSU/UNC
I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at NC State University/University of NC at Chapel Hill who is actively looking for a tenure-track faculty position.
I received my Ph.D. under the guidance of Dr. Jagdish Narayan at NC State University in Materials Engineering. My research focus was on the fabrication of thin films and nanoengineered materials via pulsed laser deposition. Using this technique and advanced characterization methods such as in-situ scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), I have worked on a broad spectrum of nanomaterial systems and improved their performance drastically. I earned the status of the first author on 13 and co-author on 3 peer-reviewed papers during my Ph.D. This background prepared me for my long-term goal of designing smart therapeutics to restore hearing. To complement my background, and align with my goal, I joined the Biomedical program under the guidance of Dr. Frances Ligler and Dr. Alon Greenbaum. My plan is to combine these two disciplines, which is reflected in my history. For example, we have a review paper on the use of piezoelectric materials for bone regeneration that received the Rosalind Franklin Award.
My postdoctoral research was focused on the areas of advanced imaging to characterize the development of porcine cochlea residing deep in the bone by developing a tissue-clearing method, working with a custom light-sheet microscope, and analyzing big datasets. Using these techniques, I established the pig as a suitable animal model to study hearing loss. I have also developed a porcine ex-vivo platform to improve therapeutics and complex biologics delivery to the inner ear. To that end, I have isolated extracellular vesicles from the inner ear cells and proposed their application as drug carriers to improve the safe delivery to the inner ear for that I received the NIH-NIDCD K99-R00 award.