Category: Current Students

Sharma Lab at Biomaterials Day 2026 On March 10, the Sharma Lab attended a regional Biomaterials Day hosted at the University of Florida. Eight universities across Florida attended talks from both invited academic and industry speakers, as well as student speakers from many of the attending universities. Rylee Newport (Ph.D. Candidate – Biomedical Engineering) presented […]

Sharma Lab at Outreach Day 2026 On March 7, Sharma Lab members Rylee Newport, Zach Bosworth, Molly Dobrow, and Ava Frank shared with K-12 students all about biomedical research done in the Sharma Lab at the 2nd Annual K-12 BME STEM Outreach Day. At Outreach Day, BME labs and clubs offer demonstrations for young aspiring […]

Rylee passes her Qualifying Exam! This spring, Rylee Newport passed her qualifying exam by presenting her thesis proposal, titled “Tunable Biomaterials for Investigating NK cell Migration Parameters in Solid Tumors.” Many thanks to her committee members, Dr. Edward Phelps, Dr. Carlos Rinaldi-Ramos, Dr. Cherie Stabler, and Dr. Ryan Thomas for their support and feedback. As […]

Congratulations to Rylee Newport and Dr. Suzanne Lightsey on presenting at TERMIS-AM 2025! In November, 2025, Sharma Lab members Rylee Newport and Dr. Suzanne Lightsey presented their research at TERMIS-AM 2025 in Detroit, MI. The focus of the conference was “Next Generation Tools for Regenerative Medicine.” Rylee Newport presented a poster on her work, 3D […]

Congratulations to Touraj for presenting his research at 3MT! We are excited to share that Touraj Amrabadi, a Ph.D. candidate, participated in the final round of the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition at the University of Florida on November 6th, 2025. Previously, he delivered a concise, engaging presentation of his research in the preliminary round […]

On October 9th, Touraj Amrabadi (Ph.D. Candidate – Chemical Engineering) presented his research on functionalized manganese dioxide nanoparticles as reactive oxygen species scavengers for targeting oxidative stress in osteoarthritis at NanoDay 2025. Great job, Touraj!

On September 29th, Touraj Amrabadi (Ph.D. Candidate – Chemical Engineering) and Rylee Newport (Ph.D. Student – Biomedical Engineering) presented their research at Pruitt Research Day in poster presentations. Touraj shared his work on manganese dioxide nanoparticles, and how they are used as reactive oxygen species scavengers to target oxidative stress in osteoarthritis. Rylee presented her […]

The Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Gordon Research Conference (GRC) was held the summer of 2025 in Barcelona, Spain. Suzanne Lightsey, a Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. candidate in the Sharma Lab, presented a poster on her research on natural killer (NK) cell infiltration in solid tumor models. She and Dr. Sharma also had the opportunity to explore […]