TERMIS

Julie Steen - Chair TERMIS-SYIS NA
Julie received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from North Carolina State University where she graduated with honors. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Wake Forest University. A member of Dr. Anthony Atala's laboratory, her research interests include the use of decellularized scaffolds for meniscus tissue engineering.

Tiffany Sellaro - Immediate Past Chair TERMIS-SYIS NA
Tiffany is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh. A member of Stephen Badylak's laboratory, her research interests include the use of naturally-derived scaffolds for hepatic tissue engineering. She graduated with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the George Washington University and then received her Master's degree in Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh in Michael Sacks' laboratory.

Dawn Delo - Vice-Chair TERMIS-SYIS NA
Dawn received her BS in Biochemistry with an Honors Thesis from Eckerd College in 2003. She later moved on to do her Ph.D. in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Her thesis research, funded by the NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship(F-31), is being done in the Wake Forest University Institute for Regenerative Medicine, where she is investigating the potential of a novel source of stem cells from amniotic fluid for cardiac regeneration.

Alison McGuigan - Treasurer TERMIS-SYIS NA
Alison completed her PhD in Michael Sefton's lab at University of Toronto in 2005 where she developed the concept of modular tissue engineering. She continued work on modular tissue engineering and microfabrication during a post-doc in George Whitesides' lab at Harvard. Currently Alison is a post-doc in Jeffrey Axelrod's lab at Stanford Medical School working in the area of planar cell polarity and it's applications to tissue engineering.

Jolene Valentin - Secretary for TERMIS-SYIS NA
Jolene is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pittsburgh in the laboratory of Dr. Stephen F. Badylak. Her thesis work focuses on the phenotypic profile and contribution of macrophages to extracellular matrix-derived scaffold materials. She graduated in 2003 from the University of Florida with a bachelor's of science degree in Materials Science and Engineering.

Masoud Yeganegi - Scientific and Professional Development Committee Chair TERMIS-SYIS NA
Masoud is pursuing a Masters degree at the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. He received his B.A.Sc. in Engineering Science (Biomedical Option) from UofT. His current research entails the tissue engineering and mechanical stimulation of intervertebral disc annulus fibrosus. He is also the co-president of the Biomedical Engineering Students Association at the University of Toronto.

Jennifer Hwang - Meeting and Fundraising Committee Chair TERMIS-SYIS NA
Jen is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, San Diego in the laboratory of Dr. Robert L. Sah. Her thesis work focuses on tissue engineering a functional osteochondral interface to achieve fixation in cartilage defects. She received her B.S. in Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating in 2004 with high honors.

Allison Finger - Meeting and Fundraising Committee Chair TERMIS-SYIS NA
Allison received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 2007 and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Bioengineering at the University of California at San Diego. Her research with Dr. Shyni Varghese aims to create tissue engineered cartilage by mechanically stimulating mesenchymal stem cells in thermoresponsive hydrogels.