Principal Investigator

Hossein Tavana, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering
University of Akron
Olson Research Center, Rm 301
260 S. Forge St., Akron, OH 44325
Office: (330) 972-6031
Cell: (734) 972-3270
Fax: (330) 374-8834
Email: tavana@uakron.edu

Graduate Students

Jacob Heiss

PhD student

Email: jsh98@uakron.edu

Jacob received his BS in Biomedical Engineering from University of Akron. He joined the lab in September 2019. Jacob’s project is to develop 3D human triple negative breast cancer models and study tumor-stomal signaling as a therapeutic target.
Pouria Rafsanjani Nejad

PhD student

Email: pr86@uakron.edu

Pouria received his BS and MS in Biomedical Engineering from Amirkabir University in Iran. He joined the lab in September 2019. Pouria’s project is to develop organic models to study toxicities of cancer therapeutics in normal tissues.
Hannah Combs

PhD student

Email: hmm68@uakron.edu

Hannah received her BS and MS in Biomedical Engineering in 2020 and 2022 from the University of Akron. She joined the lab in August 2020. Hannah’s project is to utilize a bioengineered 3D lung model to study liquid surfactant delivery.

Prasiddha Guragain

PhD student

Email: pg81@uakron.edu

Prasiddha received his BS from the College of Biomedical Engineering and Applied Sciences in Nepal. He joined the lab in August 2021. Prasiddha's project is engineering a 3D model of bone metastasis of breast cancer.
Anju Rana Magar

PhD student

Email: ar391@uakron.edu

Anju received her BS in Biomedical Engineering in Nepal. She joined the lab in September 2022. Anju's project is to develop a 3D model that mimics the varying stiffness of breast tumors while maintaining the ECM composition constant and elucidate how integrated effects of ECM stiffness and specific biochemical signals in the TME promote epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and local invasion of cancer cells.
Davonn Henderson

PhD student

Email: dlh217@uakron.edu

Davonn received her BS in Biology from Ohio State University in 2010, BS in Nursing from Kent State University in 2013. She joined the lab in September 2022. Davonn's project is researching aerosolized therapeutic drug delivery using the neonate lung model.

Undergraduate Students

Ayse Baysal

Alumni

Ehsan Atefi
PhD, 2015
David Petrak
MASc, 2013
Golnaz Jalalahmadi
MASc, 2013
Stephanie L. Ham
PhD, 2017
Antonio Copploe
MS, 2017
Ramila Joshi
PhD, 2018
Pradip Shahi Thakuri
PhD, 2019
Sunil Singh
PhD, 2021
Astha Lamichhane
PhD, 2023