Rising Stars

Award Description

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. Towards 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. 

For more information on submission requirements and scoring criteria for the 2025 Rising Star awards, please visit the 2025 CMBE Rising Stars webpage.

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, Georgia Institute of Technology

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