People
Dr. Hoffman-Kim, Ph.D is an Associate Professor of Medical Science and Engineering in the Department of Neuroscience at Brown University, the Carney Institute for Brain Science, the Center for Biomedical Engineering, and the Center for Alternatives to Animals in Testing. She studied optics and biomedical engineering at the University of Rochester and Brown University, with postdoctoral training in neurobiology at MIT and Harvard University. Following a fellowship as a Science Scholar at the Bunting Institute, she returned to Brown as one of the founding faculty in the Center for Biomedical Engineering. Professor Hoffman-Kim holds 10 patents, teaches courses in Tissue Engineering, and directs a multidisciplinary research program.
Senior Research Assistant
Liane’s role in the Hoffman-Kim lab is to work alongside students to support their research. After working in various labs across the world, including the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, the University of California at San Francisco, and the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, Liane came to the Hoffman-Kim Lab in 2001. When she is not in the lab, she enjoys gardening, drawing, traveling, reading, playing squash, volunteering, and cooking for family and friends.
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Rafael D. González Cruz, Ph.D
Rafael D. González-Cruz, PhD is a Puerto Rican neuroscientist & biomedical engineer and is currently working in the Hoffman-Kim Lab & Applied Mechanics Lab (AML) at Brown University. He conducts research on sex-specific, microglia-based neuroinflammation in rat cortical spheroids following experimental traumatic brain injury (TBI) using a novel, centrifugation-based TBI model that was co-developed with AML. Previously, he used this TBI modality to identify deformation- and time-dependent, neural cell injury thresholds and neuronal network degradation in spheroids at mild and moderate injury severities (González-Cruz & Wang et al. PLOS One 2024). In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his wife and daughter, cooking, and visiting new places.
Ph.D Students
Dominick Calvao, PhD
Dom Calvao is a 5th year PhD candidate in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine. He received his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2015 where he studied tissue engineering and biomaterials. When Dom first came to Brown he joined the Mathiowitz Lab, where he earned his Sc.M in Biomedical Engineering studying drug delivery nanotechnology in 2017. Following his Master’s, Dom worked in a variety of roles at MilliporeSigma in marketing and strategy. He returned to Brown to earn his PhD in the Hoffman-Kim lab, where he has been leveraging the lab’s cortical microtissue model to study and characterize traumatic brain injury and glioblastoma pathology.
Ahbid Zein-Sabatto, MS
Ahbid Zein-Sabatto received his bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University in 2016 and his master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Brown University in 2019. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Biomedical Engineering in both the Hoffman-Kim and Lee labs. Ahbid is working toward developing a truly label-free and longitudinal method for measuring cell viability in 3D cell cultures. He is also working with other lab members to understand and model the effects of traumatic brain injury on the lab’s three-dimensional cortical microtissue model.
Alex Del Toro
Alex Del Toro is a 4th year Ph.D. candidate in the neuroscience graduate program at Brown University. Alex is originally from Oakland California and received as B.S. in cognitive science from University of California, Merced. Overall, Alex is interested in developing live imaging methods and pipelines to study real time dynamic in cells across 3D culture platforms. Alex current work focuses on studying microglia cells of the central nervous system and trying to understand the role these cells play in innate immunity, injury, and recovery. Outside of lab, Alex enjoy hiking, the outdoors, and eating!
Ilayda Top, MS
Ilayda is a PhD student in Neuroscience from Istanbul, Turkey. She graduated from Brown in 2020 with an ScB in Neuroscience, where her research focused on investigating ischemia as a model of stroke. Post-graduation, Ilayda worked at Yale Neurology leading clinical trial enrollments while conducting independent research on machine learning interfaces to predict outcomes after brain bleeds and pioneered the multi-modal imaging of Neuro-ICU patients. Then, Ilayda earned a Master’s in Biotechnology in 2023 studying the effects of an antioxidant in ischemia. She is interested in studying ischemia-reperfusion injury to uncover mechanisms that can increase cell survival. In her free time, Ilayda enjoys spending time outside, cooking, traveling, snowboarding, and exploring museums with friends.
Master’s Students
Francesca Vecchio
Francesca is a 5th year master’s student in biomedical engineering. She received her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Brown in 2024. She joined the Hoffman-Kim lab in 2022, where she is developing a device to model and characterize blunt traumatic brain injury using the lab’s cortical microtissues. She also contributes to characterizing the glioblastoma microtissue model. Following graduation, she will be attending medical school. Outside of the lab, Francesca enjoys reading, baking, line dancing, and crocheting!
Monica Ocitti
Monica is a 5th year master’s student in the Pathobiology program. She completed her undergraduate studies at Brown and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience. In the Hoffman-Kim Lab, Monica focuses on methods of analysis and characterization of various cortical cell types under different injury paradigms. She is specifically interested in astrocyte quantification and characterization in order to gain a better understanding of the immune responses in the central nervous system. In her free time, Monica enjoys painting, watching animated movies, skateboarding, and desserts!
Undergraduate Students
Rachel Vidomlanski
Rachel is a junior at Brown University studying neuroscience and religious studies. In the lab, she is currently working on the ischemia project and plans to pursue an honors thesis on microglia in cancer.
Alumni
Undergraduate Students
[Fellowship awards: Karen T. Romer Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award (UTRA), Program in Liberal Medical Education Summer Research Assistantship (PLME SRA), and National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF REU) programs]
Meera Shah, Biomedical Engineering, 2001-2002
Mathangi Subramanian, Biochemistry, 2001-2002
Millicent Ford, Biomedical Engineering, 2002-2003 (Hughes fellowship)
Pearl Yu, Biomedical Engineering, 2002-2004 (UTRA fellowship)
Shaily Kapur, Biomedical Engineering, 2003-2004 (UTRA fellowship)
Beth Toste, Neuroscience, 2003-2004 (PLME SRA fellowship)
Alex Toy, Biomedical Engineering, 2003-2004 (UTRA fellowship)
Joshua Goldner, Biomedical Engineering, 2003-2005 (UTRA, NSF REU fellowships)
Nhu-An Le, Biomedical Engineering, 2004-2005
Jeffrey Liu, Neuroscience, 2004-2005 (PLME SRA fellowship)
Beverly See, Biology, 2003-2005 (UTRA fellowship)
Caitlin Elgarten, Biology, 2005-2006 (UTRA fellowship)
Vivian Fong, Biomedical Engineering, 2005-2006 (UTRA, NSF REU fellowships)
Jillian Harrison, Biomedical Engineering, 2005-2006
Julia Keith, Biology, 2005-2006
Nicholas Monu, Neuroscience, 2005-2006 (PLME SRA fellowship)
Elise Cheng, Biochemistry, 2006-2007
Andrea Lee, Biology, 2006-2008 (UTRA fellowships)
Julie Richardson, Biomedical Engineering, 2006-2007 (UTRA fellowship)
Johnathon Rollo, Neuroscience, 2006-2007 (NSF REU fellowship)
Michael Angelo Santos, Biomedical Engineering, 2006-2007 (UTRA, NSF REU fellowships)
Jennifer Pallay, Biomedical Engineering, 2007-2008 (UTRA, NSF REU fellowships)
Matthew Finn, Biology, 2007-2008 (UTRA fellowship)
Christina Johnson, Biomedical Engineering, 2007-2009 (UTRA, NSF REU fellowships)
Jesse Thon, Neuroscience, 2007-2009 (UTRA fellowships)
Carmichael Ong, Biomedical Engineering, 2008 (UTRA fellowship)
Cameron Rementer, Biomedical Engineering, 2008-2009 (UTRA fellowship)
Nupur Shridhar, Biochemistry, 2008 (NSF REU fellowship)
Talisha Ramchal, Biology, 2009, 2010 (UTRA, NSF REU fellowships)
Danielle Chau, Neuroscience, 2010, 2011 (UTRA, PLME SRA fellowships)
Emily Hsieh, Biomedical Engineering, 2010, 2011 (Bard, UTRA fellowships)
Cindy Oh, Biology, 2011-2012 (UTRA fellowship)
Ryan Din, Neuroscience, 2011-2012 (UTRA fellowship)
Renan Ribeiro e Ribeiro, 2012 (Bard fellowship)
Michael Kader, Biology, 2013 (UTRA fellowship)
Samantha Brady, Biomedical Engineering, 2013-2014 (Bard, UTRA fellowships)
Lyndsay Stapleton, Biology, 2014 (Leadership Alliance fellowship)
Hayley McClintock, Biomedical Engineering, 2014 (UTRA fellowship)
Liana Kramer, Biology, 2015-2016 (UTRA fellowship)
William Sheeran, Neuroscience, 2015 (UTRA fellowship)
Aurora Washington, Biology 2015 (Tougaloo College, RI Space Grant fellowship)
Taylor Pullinger, Biology 2017 (UTRA fellowship)
Rachel Walker, Biomedical Engineering, 2019
Ilayda Top, Neuroscience, 2020
Christein Hernandez, Neuroscience, 2021
Lisa Okazaki, Biomedical Engineering, 2021
Revanna Navarro, Biology, 2022
Harrison Katz, Immunology, 2023
Austin Roy, Neuroscience, 2024
Francesca Vecchio, Biomedical Engineering, 2024
Master’s Students
Elizabeth Deweerd, Biomedical Engineering, 2006
Jennifer Pallay, Biomedical Engineering, 2009
Talisha Ramchal, Biotechnology, 2012
Cindy Oh, Biotechnology, 2014
Samantha Brady, Biomedical Engineering, 2016
Payal Patel, Biomedical Engineering, 2016
Kari Truong, Biotechnology, 2016
Matthew Luminais, Biotechnology, 2017
Liana Kramer, Biotechnology, 2017
Samantha Zambuto, Biomedical Engineering, 2017
Victor Cox, Biotechnology, 2018
Lisa Okazaki, Biomedical Engineering, 2022
Ph.D. Students
Jan Bruder, Artificial Organs, Biomaterials, and Cellular Technology, 2008
Grace Li, Biomedical Engineering, 2008
Celinda Kofron, Biomedical Engineering, 2009
Julie Richardson, Biomedical Engineering, 2012
Jennifer Mitchel, Biomedical Engineering, 2012
Cristina Lopez-Fagundo, Biomedical Engineering, 2013
Yu-Ting Liu Dingle, Biomedical Engineering, 2015
Molly Boutin, Biomedical Engineering, 2016
Elisabeth Evans, Biotechnology, 2018
Jessica Sevetson, Neuroscience, 2020
Aurora Washington, Biotechnology, 2022
Rachel McLaughlin, Neuroscience, 2023