ahsan lab

Taby Ahsan, PhD.   Principal Investigator
Taby Ahsan is an Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Tulane University. She got her BSE at University of Pennsylvania, PhD with Dr. Robert Sah at UCSD, and postdoctoral training with Dr. Robert Nerem at GA Tech. Taby worked at Advanced Tissue Sciences for several years as a Senior Research Scientist and is currently on the Cell, Tissues, and Gene Therapies Advisory Council for the FDA.

Graduate Students

---

Russell P Wolfe, PhD Candidate
Russell is from Lincoln, NE and received a BS in Physics from Creighton University in 2007 where he began his research career working in a biophysical optics laboratory. Russell’s current research investigates the effect of applied fluid shear stress on pluripotent stem cell differentiation. His work has focused on early lineage commitment events, including germ lineage specification and cardiovascular differentiation, two processes which are also thought to be mechanically-regulated during development in vivo. He hopes such studies will improve techniques for scale-up bioprocessing of stem cells for tissue engineering and cell therapy applications.    (curriculum vitae)

Emma Pineda, PhD Candidate
Emma was born in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. After receiving a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame in 2008, she enrolled at Tulane University and is working towards a PhD. During her undergraduate years, she did research at Notre Dame, Stanford University, and at Zimmer Inc. Research topics included myocardial image analysis and biomaterial research for hip and knee implants. Currently, her research focuses on understanding the role of tensional homeostasis on stem cell differentiation. She is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), Biomerical Engineering Society (BMES), and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE).    (curriculum vitae)

Kristen M Lynch, PhD Candidate
Kristen is a Board of Regents Fellow in her fourth year of the BME PhD program. Originally from Brooklyn NY, Kristen came to Tulane as a freshman in August, 2005. After graduation in 2009, Kristen decided she wanted to stay on at Tulane and pursue a graduate degree. She is currently studying the role of the physical microenvironment during regeneration of the mouse digit tip. These studies aim to ultimately help promote human limb regeneration.    (curriculum vitae)

Elliot G Neal, Masters Candidate
Elliot Neal was born in Portland, Oregon and arrived in New Orleans in 2008 when he started his undergraduate degree at Tulane University. He is currently pursuing a joint master’s and bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering and expects to graduate by December of 2012. He is currently researching the dynamics of integrin expression in differentiating embryonic stem cells in order to better understand the mechanosensing ability of heterogeneous cell populations. His interests outside the lab include tennis, distance running, road cycling, and the occasional game of billiards.    (curriculum vitae)

Undergraduate Students

Kate Peucker

Elizabeth Zipf

Julia Guidry

Stephanie Messina