Principal Investigator

Prof. Minglin Ma received his B.S. degree from Tsinghua University in 2003 and PhD from Prof. Gregory Rutledge lab at MIT in 2008, both in Chemical Engineering. After graduation, he worked at General Electric Global Research Center before returning in 2009 to MIT where he received his postdoctoral training in Prof. Robert Langer and Prof. Daniel Anderson Laboratories. He joined Cornell Biological and Environmental Engineering in 2013.

Email: mm826@cornell.edu

Postdoctoral Researchers

Bo Wang

Dr. Bo is a senior research associate who joined in 2021. He received Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He works at the interface of materials and biology, and is specifically interested in developing next-gen immunotherapies mediated by materials and understanding and harnessing immune responses elicited by materials. Email: bw454@cornell.edu

Tung Pham

Tung Pham received his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Science from Yeungnam University in 2020. His doctoral research focused on conformal coating of pancreatic islets. He joined Ma lab in Fall 2020 with the goal of engineering a retrievable macroencapsulation device for the safe delivery of therapeutic cells. When not in lab, he enjoys traveling and skiing (though he is not really good at). Email: ttp25@cornell.edu

Minseok Lee

Dr. Minseok Lee received his B.S. from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 2016, M.S. and Ph.D. from KAIST in 2018 and 2022. During his Ph. D., he mainly focused on two fields: rationally designing polymers for tissue engineering and developing various in-vitro models (ex. Polymeric substrate for spheroid culture, Drug screening platform, Metastasis on a microfluidic chip). His current research interests focus on promoting endothelialization for intravascular cell encapsulation devices. Email: minseoklee@cornell.edu

PhD Students

Stephanie Fuchs

Stephanie Fuchs is a PhD candidate in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering. She is interested in studying and designing tough hydrogel biomaterials for precision drug and cell delivery applications. Outside of lab, she works as a Graduate Resident Fellow for Alice Cook House and loves exploring the beautiful Ithaca outdoors. Email: smf245@cornell.edu

Julia Carserto

Julia Caserto received her B.S. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University at Buffalo in 2019 and is currently a PhD student in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell. She is interested in developing biomaterials for detoxification applications. Email:  jc3466@cornell.edu

Kecheng Wang

Kecheng Wang received his B.S. in Pharmacy from China Pharmaceutical University in 2020 and is currently a PhD student in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell. He is interested in cell therapy and vascular tissue engineering for type 1 diabetes treatment. Email: kw622@cornell.edu

Phuong (Lora) Tran

Phuong (Lora) Tran received a Master’s degree in Pharmaceutical science from Yeungnam University in 2021. Her previous research focused on MRI contrast agents and drug delivery in islet transplantation. Her current research is developing devices for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. In her leisure time, she loves traveling to explore the culture of many countries and take photographs of natural landscape. Email: It384@cornell.edu

Kento Okada

Kento Okada received his BS in Bioengineering and Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and his MEng in Biomedical Engineering at Cornell. He is currently a PhD student in the Biological and Environmental Engineering Department at Cornell and is interested in oxygen delivery, non-fouling materials, and device design. Email: ko289@cornell.edu

Alumni

Qingsheng Liu (Postdoctoral Researcher, now Professor at Beijing University of Chemical Technology)

Shuxian Hu (Postdoctoral Researcher, now Scientist at Trautec)

Alexander Ulrich Ernst (PhD student, now at Palantir Technologies)

Daqian Gao (PhD Student, now Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University)

Longhai Wang (Postdoctoral Researcher, now Professor at University of Science and Technology of China)

Xi Wang (PhD Student, now Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University)

Daniel T. Bowers (Postdoctoral Researcher, now Scientist at IVIVA Medical Inc)

Jing Chen (Postdoctoral Researcher, now Professor at Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine)

Wanjun Liu (Postdoctoral Researcher, now Professor at Donghua University)

Natalie Brown (Undergraduate Researcher, now Incoming MD/PhD student at Harvard Medical School/Joslin Diabetes Center)

Kaavian Shariati (Undergraduate Researcher)

James Webb (MS student, now CEO of Beemmunity)

Alan Chiu (PhD Student, now Scientist I, Biology at Volastra Therapeutics)

Mingyu Qiao (Postdoctoral Researcher, now professor at UConn)

Yudi Pardo (PhD Student, now at Novartis)

Monica Zhong (Student, now PhD at Cornell)

Wei Song (Postdoctoral Researcher, now at Vertex Pharmaceuticals)

Yunyi Gao (Postdoctoral Researcher, now at EInk)

Dong Wang (Visiting postdoc researcher, now Postdoc at Cornell)

Yen-Chun (Jason) Lu (PhD Student, now postdoc in Langer/Anderson labs at MIT)

Duo An (PhD Student; 2013-2018; now at Pact Pharma – http://pactpharma.com)

Chris Zhang (Postdoctoral Researcher; 2014-2017; now at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals)

Ayobami Adebowale (Undergraduate Researcher, now at FDA)

Lauren DeLorenzo (Undergraduate Researcher)

Melissa Tan(Undergraduate Researcher; now at Stanford)

Rebecca Varghese (Undergraduate Researcher)

Ismael Oumzil (MEng student; 2016-2017; now MEng student at Cornell)

Mark Colasurdo Jr (undergraduate researcher; 2013-2015; NSF GRFP Awardee; now PhD student in the BioEngineering Program of Georgia Tech)

Ying Li (MEng student; 2014-2015; now PhD student in the Biomedical Engineering Department of University of Florida)

Denzel Faulner (undergraduate researcher; 2014-2016; now PhD student in the Biomedical Engineering of RPI)

Fangyu Zhang (MS student; 2014-2016; now PhD student in NanoEngineering of UCSD)

Justin Mathew (MEng student; 2014-2015; now working at University of Rochester Medical Center)

Leanne Lannucci (undergraduate researcher; 2014-2015; now MEng student at Cornell)

Lu Han (undergraduate researcher; 2015-2016; now MS student at UBC)

Rakeeb Kureshi (undergraduate researcher; 2014-2017; NSF GRFP Awardee; now PhD student at Harvard)

Anastasia (Anya) Varanko (undergraduate researcher; 2015-2017; NSF GRFP Awardee; now PhD student at Duke)