Alliston Lab

Stephanie Boula

Education
M.S., Materials Science, Rochester Institute of Technology
B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Rochester Institute of Technology

Biography
Stephanie obtained her B.S. in mechanical engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2017. Her degree is focused in biomedical engineering and she has a minor in French. A biomaterials course that she took as an undergraduate student fueled her interest in the study of the materials properties of biomaterials. To pursue this interest, she took an internship within the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Research Group at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia as a Visiting Scholar. In this internship, she worked on surface modifications of polymeric scaffolds used to research tissue regeneration for patients with periodontitis. She then did research at the Wan Microfluidic Research Lab at the Rochester Institute of Technology where she utilized bioprinting to create in-vitro colonic tissue in order to study the interactions between salmonella and colonic epithelial cells. To continue her interest in the field of biomaterials, she received a M.S. in materials science and engineering also from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2019. While working to obtain her graduate degree, she was a Materials Scientist Inten at a medical device company called LSI Solutions where she researched the viscoelastic behavior of materials, designed and tested parts for failure analysis, and characterized the surface of materials through energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Her final project for her degree was completed at the Gaborski NanoBio Device Lab. She worked on using microfluidic devices and ultrathin nanoporous membranes as invasion assays to study human bladder carcinoma cells inducing malignancy on primary bladder epithelial cells.

Stephanie joined the lab in September 2019 as an Assistant Specialist to help with the bioengineering activities of the CCMBM Skeletal Biology and Biomechanics Core by participating in the operation of the biomechanical and material testing equipment including the Atomic Force Microscope, BOSE ELF mechanical tester, and others.

Research Interests
• Biomechanics
• Viscoelasticity of biomaterials

Favorite Rock-Climbing Gym
Mission Clifs

Contact
stephanie.boula [at] ucsf.edu