Christine Cezar
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Christine Cezar is a post-doctoral research associate who previously completed her Ph.D. in Bioengineering at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She began her career in tissue engineering as an undergraduate at the University of Washington, where she worked in the lab of Professor Buddy Ratner optimizing cardiac cell attachment to hydrogel scaffolds using surface modification techniques to covalently immobilize proteins. She continued to build upon this project for her senior capstone where she designed and optimized a cardiac tissue-engineering scaffold capable of optimal cell attachment and controlled drug release. During her undergraduate years, she also gained industrial research experience in mammalian cell bioreactor process optimization as an intern at Trubion Pharmaceuticals. Christine completed her B.S. in Bioengineering with Honors at the University of Washington in 2008. Her positive undergraduate research experiences solidified her desire to pursue a Ph.D. in Bioengineering with a focus on biomaterials for tissue engineering. Christine began her graduate studies in Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in the fall of 2008. She is advised by Professor David Mooney, and her MRSEC seed project research focuses on ferrogels for skeletal muscle regeneration being done in collaboration with Prof. Zhigang Suo's group. Specifically, this work involves the design and optimization of an active porous scaffold that can be remotely controlled by a magnetic field to deliver various biological agents on demand. Along with her research interests, Christine has gained mentoring experience through supervision of undergraduate research and volunteer leadership at Harvard's annual Cambridge 8th Grade Science and Engineering Showcase.