September 26, 2022
U-M Biomedical Engineering is growing to meet the needs of our rapidly increasing student population and experiential learning curriculum while also serving our research mission to the benefit of humanity. We are so excited to welcome five new Assistant Professors this Fall 2022 semester.
MarĂa Coronel, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Dr. MarĂa Coronel received her BS degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Miami, and her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Florida. She also obtained a certificate in Clinical Translational Research from Emory University Public Health School. She finished her postdoctoral fellowship at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she received funding from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, NIH T31, and Georgia CTSA to support her training.
Her research group focuses on synergizing concepts of biomaterials, tissue engineering, drug delivery and immunoengineering to create synthetic bioactive therapeutics for the treatment of autoimmunity, inflammation, and cancer.
Paul Jensen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Dr. Paul Jensen was previously an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and earned bachelor’s degrees in chemical and biomedical engineering from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Virginia. He completed a post doctoral research fellowship in the Biology Department from Boston College.
His research group studies the oral microbiome using artificial intelligence, laboratory automation, and high-throughput genomics. Dr. Jensen is also interested in educational barriers to careers in artificial intelligence. He serves as co-founder and scientific advisor for Cerillo, LLC, maker of laboratory instrumentation with the biological researcher in mind.
Karin Jensen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Dr. Karin Jensen comes to us from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and earned a bachelor’s degree in biological engineering from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Virginia. Her doctoral dissertation focuses on “Systems pharmacology of cell-signaling networks in human disease.”
Her research interests include student mental health and wellness, engineering student career pathways, and engagement of engineering faculty in engineering education research. She was awarded a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation for her research on undergraduate mental health in engineering programs. She serves as an associate editor of the Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering.
Aaron Morris, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Dr. Aaron Morris completed a B.S. in BME at Georgia Tech, followed by a Ph.D. in BME from Yale University. As a postdoc, Dr. Morris worked with Dr. Lonnie Shea at the University of Michigan to use biomaterials to interrogate the immune system during autoimmunity and with Dr. Joshua Leonard at Northwestern University to build synthetic, modular receptor systems for synthetic biology platforms. Dr. Morris’s work has been supported through a number of mechanisms including the NIH K99/R00, NSF GRFP, NIH T32, Michigan Life Sciences Institute Fellows program, and a Michigan Precision Health grant, and a TED Fellowship (check out his TED talk here.
Dr. Morris heads the PRecision Immune MicroEnvironments (PRIME) Lab, which works at the intersection of biomaterials engineering, immunology, and drug delivery. The PRIME lab focuses on using engineered materials as platforms to: study immunology, diagnose disease, and develop therapeutics. They are interested in the interface between materials and living systems, and their long-term vision is to develop non-invasive systems for monitoring and manipulating immunity within tissues.
Enrico Opri, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Dr. Enrico Opri completed his BS and MS degrees in biomedical engineering at Politecnico di Milano, and his MS and PhD degrees in biomedical engineering at University of Florida. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Emory University in the Neurology Department. His work has been supported by the APDA postdoctoral fellowship, NIH Udall Pilot, NIH T32, and MNI-BI 2022 Neuroregeneration and Cognition.
His lab focuses on the exploration of the neurophysiological activity in the basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits in humans affected by neurological disorders (such as Parkinson’s, Tourette, Essential Tremor, Epilepsy), while investigating how neuromodulation (e.g. Deep Brain Stimulation, cortical stimulation mapping) alters these networks to bring a therapeutic benefit. His lab aims to identify neurological biomarkers that can be leveraged to strengthen the current clinical procedures employed for the treatment of neurological disorders, including advancements in closed-loop neurostimulation.