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James Ferri, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, and Lauren Sefcik ’04, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, have received a $357,106 Major Research Instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation.
The grant will be used to purchase equipment to enhance undergraduate research projects and expand teaching capabilities. It also will build infrastructure for the new focus on biomolecular engineering within the department.
“On an international level, bioengineering is presently one of the fastest-growing areas of research,” says Sefcik. “The acquired instruments will be used for faculty and student research projects and in courses as platforms to discuss current trends and topics in biomolecular engineering. Students will receive hands-on experience and training with state-of-the-art instrumentation.”
The three new instruments will allow students and faculty to measure the mechanical properties of synthetic and natural soft nanomembranes, to track changes in gene expression in response to engineering strain, and to image the form and structure of a cell and the expression of cellular adhesion proteins as a function of the mechanical properties of the nanomembranes.
Ferri has worked extensively with students on a one-on-one basis through independent studies and honors projects, as well as including them in his own research as part of NSF-funded research and the College’s EXCEL Scholars program. Many of his students have presented their research at national and international conferences and have received national honors such as the Morris K. Udall Scholarship, the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society fellowship.
Ferri has received or helped secure three previous NSF grants totaling more than $550,000. He has been a visiting scientist at Northwestern University in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, as well as Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany. In 2008, he received the Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Lecture Award from Lafayette. His research interests include interfacial phenomena, mechanics, transport, and rheology (study of the deformation and flow) of soft nanomaterials and bioengineering.
Sefcik, who joined the department in July, will teach courses in biomolecular engineering, including topics such as tissue engineering, drug delivery, materials science, and laboratory applications. She has received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, a fellowship from the American Heart Association, and a Faculty Senate Dissertation-Year Fellowship from the University of Virginia, where she earned her doctorate. Her research focuses on the interactions of cells and biomaterials at the nanoscale.