Postdoctoral Fellows
Research Associate
Siddarth Rawal
Expertise: Prototype Design + Microfabrication Sid was born and raised in Kenya and has an MD degree from Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary. Since 2010, Sid has been involved in microfiltration platform development for label-free detection and enrichment of Circulating Tumour Cells from human cancer patients, leading to his spin-off company Circulogix. At PMLab, Sid serves as a resident expert in SolidWorks based design of fluidic microdevices, microfabrication, 3D printing and system integration. In addition to assisting the Islet team, he is spearheading the Cancer on Chip efforts. |
Doctoral Students
Ahmad Alassaf
Project: Multi-functional Heart on a Chip Ahmad was born and raised in Saudi Arabia. After earning his Bachelors degree in Biomedical Technology from King Saud University, he came to the US for his Masters in Biomedical Engineering from the Catholic University of America in Washington DC. He gathered research experience optimizing 3D biological scaffolds for ultrasound mediated drug delivery. Since joining the PMLab in Fall 2014, he has been developing a Heart on a Chip capable of accurately measuring multiple functional outputs from engineered cardiac tissues. |
Rachel Besser
Project: Cardiac Differentiation/Maturation on a Chip Rachel was born in Honolulu and raised in Boca Raton, FL. For her undergraduate degree, she studied Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Florida and worked with hydrogels and stem cells in Christine Schmidt Lab. She joined PMLab in Fall 2015, where she is engineering dynamic microenvironments for inducing skeletal muscle phenotype. |
Matthew Ishahak
Project: Fluidic co-culture systems Matthew was born in Hollywood, FL and attended high school at American Heritage in Plantation, FL. He has completed the 5-year BS/MS in Biomedical Engineering at University of Miami, and worked with laser ablation of tissues and associated instrumentation. He joined PMLab in Spring 2015, where he is working with microfluidics, microfabricaion, and engineered cellular microarchitectures. |
Vera Mayo
Expertise: Cell and Tissue Culture, Cardiac Electrophysiology Vera was born and raised in Lima, Peru and moved to the U.S. in 2003 where she got her Bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering with a concentration in Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering at Drexel University. Vera has gathered research experience at the Hussman Institute for Human Genomics and the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute. After picking up a Master's degree in Biomedical Engineering at UM, she joined our PMLab where her main research interests are regenerative and cardiac tissue engineering. |
Dennis McDuffie
Project: Endothelial-Epithelial Interface on a Chip Dennis graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering. After joining the lab in 2018, his work focused on designing a microphysiological system to model the endothelial-epithelial interface by modeling the liver sinusoid. Since completing his Ph.D. in 2018, Dennis currently works as a scientist at PhenoVista Biosciences. |