John Hill, BS, PhD
John obtained his doctoral degree in May 2024 from GW BME. Previously he graduated with an B.S. in Human, Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise from Virginia Tech. His doctoral research work focused on projects related to gene expression and ultrasound stimulation with human pancreatic cells.
Andrew William Chen, BS, PhD
Andrew Chen was a doctoral student and a postdoc in our Therapeutic Ultrasound Lab. Originally from Somerset County N.J., Andrew received his BS in 2015 with a double major in Physics and Mathematics from Dickinson College. A desire to apply his degree to advance and improve healthcare led him to the BME program at GW where he obtained his PhD degree in 2021. Andrew's doctoral work focused on therapeutic ultrasound applications on the heart and pancreas and investigating the possibilities of these applications through fluorescent imaging of tissue slices.
Claire Allison, BS
Claire Allison graduated in May of 2023 with a Biomedical engineering major with a minor in electrical engineering at GW. She is originally from Costa Mesa, California. She was a Clare Boothe Luce Scholar and was actively involved in two projects in the Zderic lab as an undergraduate researcher. Her projects focused on using therapeutic ultrasound to enhance transcorneal drug delivery for treatment of fungal keratitis, and on studying the efficacy of therapeutic ultrasound in treating retinoblastoma alongside thermally sensitive liposomes.
Hanaa Almogbil, BS, MS, PhD
Hanaa obtained her doctoral degree from GW BME in May of 2022. Hanaa also got her BME MS degree at GW (class of ‘18) and her Bachelors in Biochemistry from King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia, Jeddah. Hanaa doctoral work focused on ultrasound-enhanced delivery of macromolecules through cornea and sclera.
Tania Singh was a BS and MS student at George Washington University studying Biomedical Engineering. She was born in India but has lived in Edison, New Jersey for most of her life. Tania was a Clark Scholar as well as a Learning Assistant for the Physics Department. She was also an advocate for Health Leads at Children’s National. She is currently a PhD student at UC Berkeley Department of Bioengineering.
Reham Esssam A Kaifi, MS, PhD
Reham Kaifi was a doctoral student in the Biomedical Engineering Department. Reham was born and raised in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Reham has received a BSc in Diagnostic Radiology from King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah and MSc in Bio-imaging from Boston University, Boston. Reham is interested in Ultrasound medical imaging and her dissertation will be focusing on Image Segmentation of Vascular B-mode Ultrasound Images for Determining Femoral Artery Pseudoaneurysms Area.
Bianca Karpinecz, BS
Bianca Karpinecz is a member of the class of 2020, originally from Fayetteville, NC. She was a Clare Booth Luce research scholar majoring in biomedical engineering and minoring in electrical engineering. In the Zderic lab Bianca studied ultrasound enhanced drug delivery for treatment of parasitic and fungal eye diseases. She is currently a graduate student at UC San Diego.
Camille Daszynski, BS, MS
Camille Daszynski was an undergraduate and Biomedical Engineer from San Jose, California. She was actively involved in two projects in the Zderic Lab: leading the research regarding the stimulation of melatonin from the human pineal gland in hopes to regulate the circadian rhythms of astronauts in space and determining the effectiveness of ultrasound for topical delivery of macromolecules. Camille was actively involved in the Clark Scholars Program, the School of Engineering Peer Advisory Network, Engineering World Health, the Biomedical Engineering Society.
Natalie Edwards, BS
Natalie Edwards was an undergraduate studying biomedical engineering, originally from Newburyport, Massachusetts. Natalie is actively involved in the Society of Women Engineers and a member of the Biomedical Engineering Society. In the Zderic Lab, she assisted in researching ultrasound enhanced transcorneal drug delivery for the treatment of fungal and parasitic keratitis.
Shane Haar, BS
Shane Haar studied biomedical engineeringat The George Washington University. Originally from Cherry Hill, NJ. He worked on acoustic and thermal modeling in the Zderic lab of different ultrasound experiments. He hopes to apply the knowledge gained from this lab to a broader set of human health problems after graduation.
Alina Kline-Schoder, BS
Alina Kline-Schoder is a member of the class of 2018, originally from Hanover, NH. She is currently a first year doctoral student at Columbia University. In the Zderic lab she researched the use of ultrasound for improved drug delivery to the toe nail bed to fight a fungal infection, a project she took over from a graduated student during the second semester of her freshman year.
Lauren Price, BSPE, GCATS
While in Dr. Zderic's lab, Lauren Price was a GCATS (Graduate Certificate in Anatomical & Translational Sciences) student from New Orleans, LA. Lauren is currently in medical school. She received her undergraduate degree in Petroleum Engineering from Louisiana State University. Her research consisted of optimizing ultrasound for pseudoaneurism detection.
Ivan M. Suarez Castellanos, PhD
Ivan Suarez Castellanos was born and raised in Bogota, Colombia and has received both a BSc in Biomedical Engineering and MSc in Electrical Engineering from The George Washington University. As a Masters student, Ivan worked on his thesis in collaboration with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in a project involving image quality assessment of full-field digital mammography systems. His doctoral research focused on studying the use of ultrasound to stimulate and enhance hormonal secretion from endocrine cells. Ivan is passionate about everything soccer and a vivid supporter of all the DC area sports teams. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at INSERM (Lyon, France).
Bogdan Balteanu, BS
Bogdan is a member of the The George Washington University class of '17. He majored in Biomedical Engineering and minored in Electrical Engineering. He was born in Bucharest, Romania but now resides in Lake Forest, Illinois, just outside of Chicago. He was a varsity swimmer for The George Washington Colonials.
Abel Rodriguez, BS
Abel is a graduate of the then newly founded department of Biomedical engineering at SEAS. Originally from Philadelphia his passion for life sciences, innovation, and mathematics drew him into the Biomedical engineering program and captivated his interests from the first day. In 2014 he was awarded the Institute for Biomedical Engineering’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship to further investigate ocular drug delivery using therapeutic ultrasound. Before graduating he was able to present his findings at the 44th Ultrasonic Industry Association Symposium and Georgetown’s Undergraduate Research Conference.
Marjan Nabili, Ph.D.
Marjan Nabili was born in Iran and immigrated to the United States because of her religious beliefs as a Baha’i, who are banned to attend universities in Iran. She received her B.Sc. degree in Biological Resources Engineering at the University of Maryland College Park in 2007. Marjan received her Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Catholic University of America in 2009. Her master’s thesis, advised by Dr. Ramella-Roman, titled Spectroscopic Imaging in Assessment of Wound Healing, focused on using a multi-aperture camera in a clinical study at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, DC. Marjan started her PhD program in Spring 2010 at George Washington University and graduated with PhD degree in Electrical Engineering in Dec 2013. Her dissertation research, titled Ultrasound-enhanced Delivery of Antibiotics and Anti-inflammatory Drugs into the Eye, focused on the application of ultrasound for drug delivery into the eye, advised by Dr. Zderic. During her years at GW, Marjan has served as a graduate teaching assistant and interned at the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Marjan was a postdoctoral research fellow at ultrasonic lab at FDA, working on investigating the bioeffects of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) procedures on the microvasculature and in the brain. Currently she is a medical devices reviewer in Mammography, Ultrasound and Imaging Software branch at the FDA.
Shutao Wang, Ph.D.
Shutao received his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering at The George Washington University in January 2012. During his time at GW, Shutao worked on focused ultrasound induced hyperthermia and enhanced drug delivery into malignant tissues. After graduation, he joined the Ultrasound Elasticity Imaging Laboratory at Columbia University as a postdoctoral research scientist. In 2014, he was promoted to an Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University. Shutao is currently pursuing his medical degree at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His research interests include the ultrasound facilitated Blood-BrainBarrier opening and harmonic motion imaging for ablation monitoring.
