American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellow
Education/Experience:
- BS, Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, 2017
- PhD, Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas at Dallas, 2023
Hometown: Denton, TX
Interests: reading, biking, yoga, baking vegan desserts
Biography: Kara is a postdoctoral fellow working with Drs. Victor Barocas and Kyoko Yoshida. She also collaborates closely with Dr. Sarah Wernimont. Her work investigates the impact of gestational diabetes on the vascular development of the umbilical cord and placenta using experimental and computational techniques. Kara is interested in how altered biochemical cues and cellular mechanisms can lead to tissue and organ level changes. During her PhD at the University of Texas at Dallas, Kara worked with Dr. Victor Varner on developmental biomechanics within the lung. Specifically, she studied the interplay between growth factor signaling and biomechanical cues in directing airway branching morphogenesis using experimental and computational techniques.
