{"id":1881,"date":"2021-05-24T17:53:32","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T17:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bme.ufl.edu\/labs\/sharma\/?p=1881"},"modified":"2026-04-22T11:46:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T15:46:01","slug":"celebrating-black-excellence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/2021\/05\/24\/celebrating-black-excellence\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Black Excellence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This year to celebrate Black History Month and to amplify Black voices within the department, UF BME published a magazine highlighting many of our Black students and alumni. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Sharma lab was well represented by current PhD student Tolu Ajayi and Post-doc alumni Dr. Isaac Adjei. Both have been integral members of the Sharma lab and have done incredible work both within the lab and beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tolu is currently in the 3rd year of her PhD. She is co-advised by Dr. Kyle Allen and her research is focused on engineering nanoparticles with targeting abilities to serve as a drug delivery platform for Osteoarthritis. Tolu is also a part of the BME Student IDEA Committee and has played in integral role in creating an inclusive department. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bme.ufl.edu\/labs\/sharma\/files\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-24-at-1.48.32-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bme.ufl.edu\/labs\/sharma\/files\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-24-at-1.48.32-PM.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1883\" width=\"154\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/505\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-24-at-1.48.32-PM.png 636w, https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/505\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-24-at-1.48.32-PM-231x300.png 231w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 154px) 100vw, 154px\" \/><\/a><figcaption>You can check out more from Tolu&#8217;s story <a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/ufbme\/docs\/amplifying_black_voices\">here<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Adjei is now an assistant professor of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&amp;M University. His research focuses on Biomaterials, micro and nanotechnology, tissue engineering, drug delivery, and cancer immunotherapy. Dr. Adjei played a significant role in the Sharma lab during his time at UF, he has helped with many of the foundational techniques and skills that we continue to use today. As well as laid some of the ground work for the research the lab has been built off of. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bme.ufl.edu\/labs\/sharma\/files\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-24-at-1.51.57-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bme.ufl.edu\/labs\/sharma\/files\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-24-at-1.51.57-PM.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1885\" width=\"166\" height=\"231\" srcset=\"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/505\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-24-at-1.51.57-PM.png 436w, https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/505\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-24-at-1.51.57-PM-215x300.png 215w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 166px) 100vw, 166px\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Check out Isaac&#8217;s story <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/ufbme\/docs\/amplifying_black_voices\">here<\/a><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you both for your contribution to the Sharma lab and the UF BME Department! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This year to celebrate Black History Month and to amplify Black voices within the department, UF BME published a magazine highlighting many of our Black students and alumni. The Sharma lab was well represented by current PhD student Tolu Ajayi and Post-doc alumni Dr. Isaac Adjei. Both have been integral members of the Sharma lab [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1085,"featured_media":1887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-templates\/single-sidebar-none.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"featured_post":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-team"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1085"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4221,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions\/4221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sharma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}