Principal Investigator
Current Staff
Jenny Yun
Laboratory Manager
Joint with A. Kloxin Lab
Joined Winter 2024
Research Interests:Understanding fundamental of CAR-T cell therapy and optimize in engineering
Hobbies: Gardening, Photographing, Birdwatching
Email: zyun@udel.edu
Pronouns: She/Hers
Fun Fact about the Lung: There are 600 million alveoli in the lung! If we add the surface area it is 75 square meters, it equals to the size of a tennis court.
Current Postdoc Members
Aida Lopez-Ruiz
Postdoc Fellow
Joined Winter 2023
Research Interests: Using nanoparticles as drug delivery systems to achieve better drug efficiency and immune engineering to target specific diseases in the body without a negative immune response.
Hobbies: Running, reading
Email: alopezr@udel.edu
Pronouns: She/Hers
Fun Fact about the Lung: The right and left lung are not the same sizes!
Patrick McCauley
EDH Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Joined Fall 2023; co-advised with A. Bayles
Research Interests: Improving throughput and cell viability in 3D bioprinting using advective assembly
Hobbies: Hiking, reading
Email: patmccau@udel.edu
Pronouns: He/His
Fun Fact about the Lung: Blue whales have the largest lung capacity, holding up to 5000 liters!
Dewansh Rastogi
Postdoc Fellow
Joined Winter 2024
Research Interests: Engineering Aerosols: phase, morphology, and size; Electron microscopy, and visualization of in situ aerosol phenomena; Technology development and testing for aerosol capture; Testing TIDAL lung model to understand aerosol deposition inside lungs.
Hobbies: Listening to podcasts, cooking, and reading
Email: drastogi@udel.edu
Pronouns: He/Him
The lungs are good at maintaining a high-humidity condition inside the body (>90 RH%)!
Current Graduate Student Members
Emma Sudduth
PhD Candidate and CBI Fellow
Joined Spring 2022
Research Interests: Inhalable vaccines using model PEG-based hydrogel nanoparticles for more effective aerosolized immunotherapies of the elderly population.
Hobbies: Soccer, Volleyball, and Softball
Email: esudduth@udel.edu
Pronouns: She/Hers
Fun Fact about the Lung: The average adult breaths 13 pints of air every minute!
Michael Trautmann Rodriguez
PhD Candidate and GAANN Fellow
Joined Fall 2021
Research Interests: Nanoparticle-Antigen Presenting Cell interactions, and development of PEG-based hydrogel nanoparticle immunotherapies for driving immune tolerance.
Hobbies: Volleyball, Reading, and Painting
Email: matr@udel.edu
Pronouns: He/His
Fun Fact about the Lung: The lungs only use 5% of the oxygen we breathe in!
Yinkui Yu
PhD Candidate
Joined Fall 2021
Research Interests: Exploiting in-vitro and in-silico engineering tools including 3D printing and CFPD to model aerosol transport and deposition in human lungs.
Hobbies: Rock Climbing, Motorcycle, and Lego
Email: yinkui@udel.edu
Pronouns: He/His
Fun Fact about the Lung: The lung is the only human organ that can float on water!
Jodi Graf
PhD Candidate and GRFP Fellow
Joined Fall 2022; co-advised with A. Kloxin
Research Interests: Engineering macrophages in different micro environments to better model respiratory therapeutics in vitro.
Hobbies: Volleyball, Exercising and Cooking/Baking
Email: grafjo@udel.edu
Pronouns: She/Hers
Fun Fact about the Lung: The lung is able to float on water because of the aveoli which expand their diameter nearly 20x when filling with air!
Eric Slaughter
PhD Candidate
Joined Fall 2022; co-advised with A. Kloxin
Research Interests: Improving CAR T-cell therapy manufacturing through tangential flow filtration and tunable hydrogel materials.
Hobbies: Tennis, Cooking/Baking, Video games w/ friends
Email: ersla@udel.edu
Pronouns: He/His
Fun Fact about the Lung: You lose water when you exhale. At rest, the body loses approximately 0.5 ounces of water!
Spencer Wolfe
PhD Candidate and CBI Fellow
Joined Fall 2022
Research Interests: Trained immunity; the immunological memory of the innate immune system.
Hobbies: Reading and cooking
Email: spwolfe@udel.edu
Pronouns: He/His
Fun Fact about the Lung: An average person breathes in around 11,000 liters of air every day!
Lisa Bain
PhD Student and GRFP Fellow
Joined Winter 2024
Research Interests: Engineering nanoparticle immunotherapies to investigate the effect of degradation on macrophage survival and cellular structure
Hobbies: MLB Baseball (Go Cardinals!), Broadway Musicals, and playing my Ukulele
Email: lbain@udel.edu
Pronouns: She/Hers
Fun Fact about the Lung: Women have a faster breathing rate than men. This is because women have a higher physiological cost of moving a given amount of air in and out of the lungs coupled with a smaller lung volume.
Sam Fine
PhD Student
Joined Winter 2024, co-advised with M Blenner
Research Interests: Using synthetic biology to increase viability of CAR macrophages as a therapeutic
Hobbies: personal finance, National Guard
Email: samfine@udel.edu
Pronouns: he/him
Fun Fact: If you combined your lungs’ airways end-to-end, they would stretch about 1500 miles!
Dominic Hoffman
PhD Student
Joined Winter 2024
Research Interests: Aerosol Mass Transfer
Hobbies: Powerlifting
Email: domhof@udel.edu
Pronouns: He/Him
Fun Fact about the Lung: the lung is the only human organ that can float on water
Current Undergraduate Student Members
Saurav Padhye
UD ChE Class of 2024
Research interests: Using a combination of in vitro and in silico methods to model aerosol particle deposition in the upper airways of pediatric patients
Hobbies: Basketball, volleyball, and video games
Email: spadhye@udel.edu
Fun Fact about the Lung: The shape of a child’s airways changes as they develop!
Nicole Gill
UD ChE Class of 2024
Research Interests: Investigate how nanoparticle uptake affects the cellular structures of macrophages.
Hobbies: Running and mountain biking
Email: nicoleag@udel.edu
Fun Fact about the Lung: The surface area of the alveoli in both lungs sums up to approximately 160 square meters, which is 80 times greater than the surface area of an adult human’s skin!
Joaquina Somma
UD CBE Class of 2025
Research Interests: Understanding how different factors like diseases and age affect the lung’s structure and functionality.
Hobbies: Listening to music, swimming, and reading
Email: jfsom@udel.edu
Fun Fact about the Lung: A person could live with one lung and life expectancy would not significantly change!
Adhya Anilkumar
UD BME Class of 2026
Research Interests: utilizing nanoparticles and therapeutics for pulmonary drug delivery, and exploring molecular transportation mechanisms for targeted delivery of biomedical interventions within the body
Hobbies: Exercising, Solving Puzzles, Painting, and Baking/Cooking
Email: adhya@udel.edu
Fun Fact about the Lung: The lungs play a key role when we speak! Air is pushed up through the Trachea and into the Larynx (voice box), where the vocal cords vibrate and create sound as air passes.
Ning Zhang
UD ChE Class of 2024
Research Interests: Understanding how engineering tools including 3D printing helps to solve problems related to pulmonary delivery
Hobbies: Watching musicals and forest hiking
Email: zisaning@udel.edu
Fun Fact about the Lung: The left lung tends to be smaller than the right lung in people to accommodate for the heart, which is located on the left side of the body!
Nina Armstrong
UD MechE Class of 2027
Research Interests: Understanding how engineering tools including 3D printing helps to solve problems related to pulmonary delivery
Hobbies: Reading, exercising, and playing guitar
Email: ninava@udel.edu
Fun Fact about the Lung: The lungs are never completely empty: There is always some air left in the lungs after a maximal exhalation. If this residual volume did not exist and the lungs emptied completely, the lung tissues would stick together.