News & Events

April 24, 2026

Schmidt Lab Spring 2026 UG research presentations – our favorite time of the semester! We love hearing about all the amazing research these talented and hard working UF BME students are doing in the lab, which also reflects the dedication of their PhD and postdoc mentors.

Congrats to Collin Klaus who is graduating with his BS and heading to Duke BME to pursue his MS and to Abiah Sam Sentic who is completing her MS and next going to Dallas to work at a startup.

Thanks to the mentors and graduate trainees in the lab: Dr. Gopal Agarwal (not pictured), Dr. Amanda Juraski, Allison Campbell-Galbraith, and Isabella Pinto.

Thanks to our UG Researchers from the Spring semester: Leina Owens, David Gonzalez, Jonah Ferber, Sofia Reyes Rodriguez, Chase Tucker, and Collin Klaus.

Also pictured are Claudia Hernandez-Cruz and William Schecter, who will start working in our lab over the summer/fall.

April 7, 2026

Proud of our Schmidt Lab UGs Anouska Seal, David Gonzalez and Jonah Ferber who presented their current research at the UF Undergraduate Research Symposium 2026.

Their dedication, curiosity, and contributions to our research are truly appreciated. It’s exciting to see them grow as scientists, and we look forward to their future achievements!

March 13, 2026

Congratulations to Allison Campbell-Galbraith who received Outstanding Graduate Poster and Best Graphical Abstract at the University of Florida’s 21st Annual Neuromuscular Plasticity T32 Symposium. She presented her work on modulating neuroinflammatory responses after spinal cord injury and learned from colleagues working in neuromuscular regeneration and rehabilitation. Thank you to the T32 training program for their support of Allison!

March 10, 2026

Our two UGs, Anouska Seal and Jonah G. Ferber, represented the Schmidt Lab well at the Florida Regional Biomaterials Day. Jonah gave a fantastic rapid-fire talk and Anouska received the Best UG Poster Presentation Award. Great job! Kudos to them and their mentors!

February 6, 2026

The Schmidt lab came together to celebrate their accomplishments for the past year and to welcome 2026. They also had fun decorating Valentine’s Day cookies!

Group Photo –

Back, standing (l to r): Collin Klaus (UG, mentored by Amanda), Gopal Agarwal (postdoc), Fernando Alves (Amanda’s husband), Amanda Juraski (postdoc), Anouska Seal (UG, mentored by Gopal), Allison Campbell Galbraith (PhD student), Conner Galbraith (Allison’s husband), Isabella Pinto (PhD student), Dale Zahn Towsend (Isabella’s fianc?)

Front,  seated (l to r): David Gonzales (UG, mentored by Allison), Sofia Reyes (UG, mentored by Gopal), Abiah Sam Sentic (MS, mentored by Gopal), Ellery Schmidt, Jonah Ferber (UG, mentored by Allison)

Welcome to the Fall semester! We had a great time celebrating with lots of food in traditional pot luck fashion, engaging conversation, billiards and board games!

Photo:

Front Row, L to R: Anouska Seal, Kennedy Moes, Allison Campbell, Amanda Juraski, Angiolina Dall’Acqua

Back Row, L to R: Leina Owens, Abiah Sentic, Gopal Agarwal, Blanca Ostmark, Christine Schmidt, Chase Tucker, Collin Klaus

Wonderful job by my trainees today! We had our Spring UG research presentations. Extra congratulations to our graduating students – Samantha Shumard and Izabella Zmirska for receiving their BS degrees in BME, and Dr. Xander Lim (co-advised with Dr. Kevin Otto, now Head of BME at Purdue) for receiving his PhD in BME! We celebrated afterwards at Chuy’s, and celebrated Samantha’s and Izabella’s graduation at the BME Pinning Ceremony.

Proud of our Schmidt Lab trainees — Allison Campbell, PhD student, and Ethan McMillan, MS student — discussing their research on developing injectable therapies for spinal cord injury (SCI) at UF Biomaterials Day 2025.

Congratulations to our UF BME PhD student, Allison Campbell, who was selected for the UF T32 Neuromuscular Plasticity Training Program (NMPT), overseen by Drs. Fuller, Vandenborne, and Judge. Allison is researching injectable hydrogel/drug therapies for Spinal Cord Injury (SCI).

So proud of our postdoc, Dr. Gopal Agarwal, who gave a fantastic kick-off talk at the North Central Florida (NCF) Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience (SFN). He showcased his impactful work on developing injectable therapeutics for spinal cord injury (SCI) treatment.