Grace Qian Email & Phone Number

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

My work involved characterizing the epithelial rosette structures that form within nephron progenitor cell populations as they differentiate from iPSCs, and also investigating the relationship between the paraxial and intermediate mesoderms during development. I've also worked on analyzing organoids formed from co-cultured ureteric bud tip and nephron progenitor cells, formed from a novel DNA patterning technology by the Hughes lab.

I served as a teaching assistant for a core Bioengineering course, the Sophomore Lab. It was a rewarding experience for me to introduce the students to the BE Labs, a place I have been very familiar with throughout my undergrad experience. At the same time, it was a challenge to anticipate the problems students would come across. As a TA, I guided students as they learned how to use wet lab equipment, circuitry components, and 3D prototyping tools within the biomakerspace, and also helped the student groups develop problem solving skills during the engineering process. Additionally, I helped the course run smoothly by regularly communicating and leading discussions with the teaching team.

After a year of tutoring, I joined the tutor mentor board. As a mentor, I regularly met up with a small group of junior tutors tutors to get input on the program, especially with changes made during the pandemic. We also discussed strategies for helping students with different learning styles, and additionally I provided these tutors with resources for facing tough situations and personal development. Once a semester, I also sat in in on teaching sessions to conduct performance reviews according to department guidelines.

As a tutor, I supported students in understanding and reviewing the course material, as well as improving their studying strategies. Over the course of my time as a tutor, I have hosted tutoring sessions in a variety of STEM topics (mostly computer science) and have engaged with students weekly in one on one, small group, or drop-in settings. About once a semester I would also help facilitate large group review workshops, often as a primer for entering certain intro-level courses.

United States

I joined the automation engineering team at Novo Nordisk to learn more about production in the pharmaceutical field, and what it takes for such a large facility to work. During my time there, my main project focused on prototyping interactive SOPs for those on the manufacturing team within a digital workflow software to aid in the streamlining of batches. As new workers were onboarded, we wanted to find better ways for them to follow complicated, multi-step protocols that needed to work synchronously with each other. Throughout my time I led discussions about improving the project with leaders of multiple departments that it would most impact, and I even presented this work to the leadership board at the end of my term. In addition to this, I participated in various deviation resolution meetings, and conducted field research of new equipment. I also participated in the Novo Nordisk collaborative nationwide internal case competition and won first place with my team.

I developed an automated pipline using ImageJ and MATLAB for the batch processing of information from histological images. Additionally, I also prepared mouse leg samples for whole-mount IHC and performed segmentation on the resulting images to identify and quantify the various tissue groups as a result of various experimental conditions.

Remote

During this position, I planned and taught regular classes to groups of students aged K - 8 in a variety of STEAM topics(including 3D design, coding with Scratch, Minecraft, digital art, and graphic design), and also created resources to supplement my teaching. Over the summer, I taught full-day curriculums and led weekly program-wide events for student bonding and enrichment.

Philadephia, Pennsylvania

I worked as a student docent at the Arthur Ross Gallery, a small gallery that hosted rotating installations of various artists, located in the Fisher Fine Arts Library at UPenn. During my time, I entertained guests and provided them with information and resources about the seasonal exhibits at the Arthur Ross Gallery as well as the Fisher Fine Arts Library. Oftentimes, especially for visitors of larger groups, I led tours throughout the exhibit.

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

During my time in the Eleftherios Lab in the Schepens Institute, I was working on the development of a non-invasive polymer drug delivery device to treat corneal melting. The device consisted of a stiff porous scaffold and a crosslinked hydrogel that resided in the matrix and contained the drug for release. The goal was for the device to maintain sustained drug release, so to optimize for that I compared the release rate of gels of differing degrees of crosslinking, which was quantified by mechanical testing. In the assembly of the overall device, I used 3D design to develop a mold and a protocol for the construction of the device scaffolding.Research Publication: Zhou, C., Singh, A., Qian, G., Wolkow, N., Dohlman, C. H., Vavvas, D. G., ... & Paschalis, E. I. (2020). Microporous drug delivery system for sustained Anti-VEGF delivery to the eye. Translational vision science & technology, 9(8), 5-5. https://tvst.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2770242

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Using the high-throughput microbial growth machine eVOLVER, I designed and executed an experiment investigating how bacteria could adapt to alternative food and nitrogen sources. The type of bacteria used was selected for its rapid reproduction rate, which allowed us to see evolution over the course of days and weeks.

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd

Bachelor Of Science In Engineering (May 2023), Master Of Science In Engineering (Dec 2023), Major: Bioengineering, Minor: Computer And Information Sciences, Mathematics, Master'S Student

Activities and Societies: President for the Biomedical Engineering Society | Editor for UnEarthed, a magazine club | Marketing Manager.

High School Diploma

Activities and Societies: Captain of the Robotics Club | Music Director of Noteworthy A Cappella Group | President of the Murals Club |.