Answer:

We study how multicellular systems build complex tissues and organs and how these change in disease. Essentially, we study how populations of cells talk to each other, deciphering the language (chemical signals, electrical impulses and physical forces) they use to communicate. My path has included studying engineering as an undergraduate, being a seventh-grade public schoolteacher, graduate school, working as a firefighter and medic, and completing two postdocs. I’ve trained in three different scientific disciplines and have practical experience performing emergency medicine in the field. These experiences inform my desire to work on translational research to develop treatments for congenital birth defects and conditions associated with premature birth, maternal and fetal health, and pediatric diseases.

Answer:

I am an engineer, so I do like lines. However, much to my parents’ frustration, I would often take electrical/mechanical devices apart to see how they worked and often repurposed the parts for things I was building. As I got older, I could even reassemble the items so they were functional again.

Around age 5, I was notorious for taking apart click pens to steal the springs and internal parts. I would put the pens back together (now useless), then build little shooters and cars with the parts!

Answer:

My undergraduate degree is in mechanical engineering. It wasn’t until I took a physiology course in my senior year that I became amazed at how the human body works. In grad school, I took gross anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology with the medical students. As I learned how we grow and develop in the womb, it dawned on me that, mechanically speaking, embryonic organs are microfluidic systems–teeny tiny fluid-filled tubes–that grow and remodel. This solidified my ideas that fluids and mechanical forces may interact with the biological, molecular and genetic programs during development to sculpt the growing organs. Since then I have been developing and using tools (e.g., micropatterning and microfluidics) to measure, perturb and watch these processes in complex tissues and organs to connect mechanical forces to the cellular programs driving development, homeostasis and disease.

Answer:

There are always naysayers and skeptics; however, you just have to believe in your ideas. I surround myself with extremely intelligent and creative students and collaborators grounded in very diverse fields of study. We leverage that diversity of training, perspective and opinion, and allow ourselves to be ruthlessly critical of any ideas we have so that the best ideas float to the top. I know that if we can tear apart and build on an idea within that framework, then even if it’s difficult, it’s an idea or approach that is important and it has a higher likelihood of success.

Answer:

I grew up in a hard working, blue-collar family full of elementary school teachers. I was one of the few in my family to go to college and the first to go to graduate school. I didn’t know anyone in science or research growing up. However, even though he didn’t go to college, my father is exceptionally clever and has an innate understanding and ability to build and fix things, usually in a jury-rigged, MacGyver-esque fashion. I think the many hours I spent with my dad as a kid gave me the exposure (and practice) of thinking this way–to really understand how something works and to laterally generate solutions to a problem. This is fundamentally how I think about problems today. 

Answer:

Training my students is both the most satisfying and terrifying aspect of my work. The ability to work with diverse students, to help develop their critical thinking skills and abilities in the lab, and to watch them grow as people/engineers/scientists is extremely rewarding. They provide endless new ideas and contagious enthusiasm. However, it is also a tremendous responsibility to provide meaningful mentorship and the latitude students need to develop into successful innovators. This is a responsibility that I don’t take lightly. I believe I will continue to make significant contributions to scientific knowledge, but I know that some of my most important contributions will be the people I train. My trainees will continue to innovate and improve the world in their own way.

Answer:

It is hard to choose. We are working on a range of projects that I find deeply interesting, challenging and impactful. These projects span the gamut, from developing microfluidic systems to study virus-host interactions across multiple ecological contexts, to devising drug-delivery strategies to selectively treat mom or baby during pregnancy, to creating a microfluidic device for the culture of mouse lungs to study the molecular signaling (dys)regulation that occurs in premature babies when they are placed on a ventilator.

Answer:

No, my wife keeps me in line. In all seriousness, I am fortunate to have a partner that is exceptionally supportive of me and my ideas. She also serves as a front-line screen for my crazy ideas and helps keep me grounded in reality. That said, I do think she is happy that I have my own laboratory space to tinker and build things so that I leave the appliances alone…

Answer:

I think that the problems we are working on are exceptionally challenging, but that we are looking at these problems in a different way such that we can really move the needle and generate solutions. Having had experience treating patients as a medic on an ambulance and interacting with parents and babies in the NICU, I know the direct impacts of the work we are pursuing for parents and kids who are given the scare of their lives with a grim diagnosis. If science tells us anything — it is that a life-changing discovery is just around the corner. We just need the courage to test some of our craziest ideas to try and make a real difference.