News

Ford lab graduate students Beibei Gao and Rhea Braun presented a poster "Using Agent-Based Modeling to Evaluate the Role of Shear Flows in Limiting Chemotactic Response to NAPL Chemoattractant Sources Under Flow Near a Surface " at the 2022 AGU conference in Chicago, IL. Congrats!

Congratulations to Ford lab graduate student Beibei Gao on a succesful defense of her Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Multiscale Modeling and Experimental Approaches to Link Macrosocpic and Macroscopic Bacterial Chemotaxis". Beibei was instrumental in the development of computational models and microfluidic devices for bioremediation investigations and for sharing her infamous hotpot with the Ford lab! Beibei has started her new post-doc position in Prof. Geelsu Hwang's lab at the Univeristy of Pennslyvania School of Dental Medicine. Congratulations Dr. Beibei Gao!

The Ford lab lead a lab demo in an UVA Society of Women Engineer STEM outrech event for girl middle-school students. The lab demo simulated an oil spill and the students were tasked with designing strategies for oil spill clean-up. Ford lab members informed the students on different tools and methods to clean-up the oil spill. It was amazing to the collaborative and creative approaches the students took to clean up the oil!

Welcome the new Ford lab member: Meaghan Yant! Meaghan graduated with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Bucknell University. She will be studying on Staphylococcus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa hitchiking motility in lung mucus.

Congratulations to PhD student Sanha Kim for being selected to display his work in the UVA Chemistry Department Scentific Art Contest! Sanha's piece, titled 'Fearful Symmetry' now displayed in the UVA Chemistry Building, is a microscopy image of bacterial growth and movement in a soft agar gel. The piece reflects 'an element of radial symmetry that gives a sense of order among the disorder'.

This summer, three chemical engineering majors worked full time as Dean's Undergraduate Engineering Research Fellows through a new initiative created by UVA Engineering Dean Jennifer West. The program provides wages for undergraduates to continue working in faculty labs during the summer.

Congratulations to Rhea Braun on a successful Ph.D. proposal defense! The title of Rhea's proposal was "Separating Mixed Bacterial Populations Using Chemotaxis" that included diverse microfluidic, computational modeling, and sonification research aims. The Ford group celebrated over tea and lunch at Tea Bazaar.

Ford lab second-year graduate student Sanha Kim received the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program award for 2022. Sanha is one of eight graduate students to receive the award at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science for 2022.
Sanha's NSF GRFP research proposal is titled "Multi-scale model of P. aeruginosa transport and growth in mucus porous media". Congratulations Sanha!

The Ford lab recently travelled to Washington D.C. to visit the If/Then She/Can exhibit. Each group member identified a women scientist to present about in group meeting (pictured below is graduate student Rhea with her choice). It was awesome to see such diverse representation of women in STEM!

Ford lab undergraduate student Lex Cresci was awarded the Dean's Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship and Gregory J. Canty Research Award for Summer 2022. Lex will study how marine conditions control bacteria attachment to microplastics. Congratulations Lex!