CMBE Rising Stars Award
The BMES Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Special Interest Group brings together researchers with diverse scientific and clinical interests with a common goal of understanding and engineering molecules, cells, their interactions, and microenvironments in the pursuit of controlling biological processes, and improving the practice of medicine.
To maintain its multidisciplinary character and central research focus, the CMBE SIG is committed to supporting new investigators within the field. Toward this goal, the “Rising Star” award has been given to a select group of exceptional junior principal investigators each year. Awardees provide a podium presentation in a special session at the annual conference.
2025 RISING STARS AWARD DEADLINE HAS PASSED
For questions, please contact huttone@bmes.org
Application Information
-
Application Requirements
The deadline to submit an application was September 12th, 2024. The 2025 CMBE Awards were announced early November 2024. Additional details were shared in November 2024.
Submissions should contain the title, author names, author affiliations, and an abstract that is less than one page in length. The inclusion of a figure demonstrating key results in the abstract is encouraged. Additionally, authors should supply a NIH or NSF style biosketch. This information should be submitted as a single pdf file, with the abstract first. Files should be named with the following format (LastName_FirstName_RisingStars.pdf). The template of the 2025 abstract can be found here.
-
Eligibility
Applicants must have had an independent lab for no more than six years at the time of application. Abstracts should present work from the applicant's independent lab. Applicants that support and promote a vibrant, diverse, equitable, and inclusive research community are especially encouraged to apply.
-
Award
A certificate and a short talk at the 2025 Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Awards Symposia. A small honorarium may be established if funds can be secured.
-
Scoring Criteria
The scoring criteria include the abstract’s significance, innovation, technical content, and clarity. Additionally, the investigator and his/her contribution to diversity, inclusion, and equity will also be considered. The scoring rubric can be found here.
BMES CMBE Rising Star Award Recipients
-
2025
Brian Aguado
Haogang Cai
Jun Chen
Yanxiang Deng
Marian Hettiaratchi
Laurel Hind
Guosong Hong
Priscilla Hwang
Nitin Joshi
Esak Lee
Jiahe Li
Claudia Loebel
Panagiotis Mistriotis
Karina Nakayama
Hadi Nia
Shreya Raghavan
Ritu Raman
Quinton Smith
Yichun Wang
Joshua Weinstein
-
2024
Rosalyn Abbott, Carnegie Mellon University
Jonathan Brunger, Vanderbilt University
Daniel Cohen, Princeton University
Xiaojing Gao, Stanford University
Xue Gao, University of Pennsylvania
Riccardo Gottardi, University of Pennsylvania
Donny Hanyaga-Putra, University of Notre Dame
Neil Lin, UCLA
David Myers, Hope College
Lingyan Shi, University of California San Diego
Julea Vlassakis, Rice University
Ioannis Zervantonakis, University of Pittsburgh
-
2023
Mohammad Fallahi-Sichani, University of Virginia
Quanyin Hu, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Luo Gu, Johns Hopkins University
Leo YT Chou, University of Toronto
Xiaoping Bao, Purdue University
Evangelia Bellas, Temple University
Katie Galloway, MIT
Xi Ren, Carnegie Mellon University
Alex Hughes, University of Pennsylvania
Sara Rouhanifard, Northeastern University
Carolyn Schutt Ibsen, Oregon Health & Science University
Chelsea Magin, University of Colorado
Ahmet Coskun, Georgia Institute of Technology
-
2022
Amanda Randles, Duke University
Ilana Brito, Cornell University
Iwijn De Vlaminck, Cornell University
Lukasz Bugaj, University of Pennsylvania
Spencer Szczesny, University of Pennsylvania
-
2021
Brendon Baker, University of Michigan
Sidi Bencherif, Northeastern University
Weiqiang Chen, New York University
Cesar de la Fuente, University of Pennsylvania
Neha Kamat, Northwestern University
Ester Kwon, University of California, San Diego
Zhen Mam Syracuse University
Scott Medina, Pennsylvania State University
Jeffrey Millman, Washington University in St. Louis
Michael Murrell, Yale University
-
2020
Keyue Shen, University of Southern California
Timothy Downing, University of California, Irvine
Madeleine Oudin, Tufts University
Matthew Fisher, North Carolina State University
Xiaojun Lian, Penn State University
Eunji Chung, University of Southern California
Stephaine Seidlits, University of California, Los Angeles
Gregg Duncan, University of Maryland
-
2019
Ovijit Chaudhuri, Stanford University
Jonathan Rivnay, Northwestern University
Michael Mitchell, University of Pennsylvania
Patrick Cahan, Johns Hopkins University
Kelly Stevens, University of Washington
Rebecca Pompano, University of Virginia
-
2018
Liming Bian, PhD, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Sarah Calve, PhD, Purdue University
Daniel Conway, PhD, Virginia Commonwealth University
Yizhou Dong, PhD, The Ohio State University
Akhilesh Gaharwar, PhD, Texas A&M University
Padmini Rangamani, PhD, University of California, San Diego
John Slater, PhD, University of Delaware
Jeremiah J. Zartman, PhD, University of Notre Dame
-
2017
Tzahi Cohen-Karni, PhD, Carnegie Mellon University
Kareen Coulombe, PhD, Brown University
Brandon DeKosky, PhD, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Rong Fan, PhD, Yale University
Stephanie Fraley, PhD, University of California San Diego
Jianping Fu, PhD, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Penney Gilbert, PhD, University of Toronto
Jason Gleghorn, PhD, University of Delaware
Ngan Huang, PhD, Stanford University
Jenny Jiang, PhD, University of Texas at Austin
Allen Liu, PhD, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Megan McCain, PhD, USC
Evan Scott, PhD, Northwestern University
Chelsey Simmons, PhD, University of Florida
Qiaobing Xu, PhD, Tufts University
-
2016
Umut Gurkan, PhD, Case Western Reserve University
Amit Pathak, PhD, Washington University, St. Louis
Shipla Sant, PhD, University of Pittsburgh
Jae-Won Shin, PhD, University of Illinois, Chicago
Feng Zhao, PhD, Michigan Technological University
Pinar Zorlutuna, PhD, University of Notre Dame
-
2015
Lauren Black, PhD, Tufts University
Ben Cosgrove, PhD, Cornell University
Guohao Dai, PhD, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Brendan Harley, PhD, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Nic Leipzig, PhD, University of Akron
Siva Vanapalli, PhD, Texas Tech University
-
2014
Pen-Hsiu Grace Chao, PhD, National Taiwan University
Brenton Hoffman, PhD, Duke University
Lucas Lu, PhD, University of Delaware
Corey Neu, PhD, Purdue University
Michelle Previtera, PhD, Setton Hall University
Ankhur Singh, PhD, Cornell University
Edward Sander, PhD, Iowa State University
Fan Yang, PhD, Stanford University
-
2013
Randolph Ashton, PhD, University of Wisconsin
Nadeen Chahine, PhD, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in New York
Adam Feinberg, PhD, Case Western Reserve University
Doek-Ho Kim, PhD, University of Washington
Wendy Liu, PhD, University of California, Irvine
Krishanu Saha, PhD, University of Wisconsin
Leo Wan, PhD, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
-
2012
Eric Darling, PhD, Brown University
Nathan Gallant, PhD, University of Southern Florida
Charles Gersbach, PhD, Duke University
Jiro Nagatomi, PhD, Clemson University
Shelly Peyton, PhD, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Cindy Reinhart-King, PhD, Cornell University
Sihong Wang, PhD, City College of New York
-
2011
Peter Butler, PhD, Pennsylvania State University
Roland Kaunas, PhD, Texas A&M University
Sanjay Kumar, PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Rob Mauck, PhD, University of Pennsylvania
Alisa Morss Clyne, PhD, Drexel University