Announcing the Recipients of the 2022-2023 Krish Roy – GRA Travel Awards

The Krish Roy - GRA Travel Award is a new travel award endowed by Professor Krishnendu Roy with funding provided by the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA). Roy is a Regents’ Professor and the Robert A. Milton Endowed Chair in Biomedical Engineering. He also serves as Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT), the Marcus Center for Cell Therapy Characterization and Manufacturing (MC3M), and the Center for ImmunoEngineering. The award was designed to support to IBB-affiliated undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral trainees conducting research in cell manufacturing, drug delivery, immunoengineering, and regenerative medicine.

Ten finalists (pictured left) were selected to receive a stipend to travel to a domestic or international conference or workshop to present their research work.

“The Krish Roy Travel award allowed me to participate in my first conference of my graduate school career." said Parisa Keshavarz-Joud. "I had the opportunity to present a poster on my research at the Physical Virology Gordon Research Conference in January 2023 and interact with experts in the field. This experience broadened my knowledge of the field and helped me in developing new ideas about the next steps of my project.”

Elijah Holland used his award in January to attend the Fibronectin Gordon Research Conference in Ventura, California. In expressing gratitude for the award, Holland shared that he was able to meet leaders in the cell adhesion field and gave his first oral research presentation, titled "Mechanotransduction at Focal Adhesions: Interplay among Force, FAs, and YAP."

Fourth-year ChemE PhD student Hyun Jee Lee plans to use the award to her support her first experience at an international seminar and conference, where she will present her research and connect with other researchers around the world. Lee's research focus is developing microfluidic tools to study cellular and molecular mechanisms in small organisms. "I'm particularly interested in investigating brain activity changes associated with learning in C. elegans." Lee explained. "I'm very grateful to have received the award." 

Awardees (pictured from top left to right):

John Cox, Graduate Research Assistant, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Yarelis Gonzalez-Vargas, Graduate Student, Biomedical Engineering

Travis Rotterman, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, Biological Sciences

Wenting Shi, Graduate Research Assistant, Chemistry and Biochemistry

Kamisha Hill, Graduate Research Assistant, Chemistry and Biochemistry

Paris Keshavarz-Joud, Graduate Research Assistant, Chemistry and Biochemistry

Elijah Holland, Graduate Research Assistant, Mechanical Engineering

Hun Jee Lee, Graduate Student, Chemical Engineering 

Maeve Janecka, Undergraduate Student, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering 

Sunny (Chao-yi) Lu, Graduate Research Assistant, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering