Mykel Green and Olivia Lanier will join the Department of Biomedical Engineering as fellows from the UT Austin Provost Early Career Fellowship program. They will receive support for three years to develop a research and teaching portfolio in the area of health care disparities. As part of a university-wide fellow cohort, they will participate in a unique mentorship program to develop skills useful to launching a successful faculty career.
L-R: Dr. Mykel Green and Dr. Olivia Lanier will join the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the fall of 2021.
Dr. Mykel Green is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in the Hematology-Medical Oncology Department in New York. He will join the lab of Professor Elizabeth Cosgriff-Hernandez in the fall where his research will involve development of biomaterial scaffolds for tissue engineering applications tailored toward sickle cell disease.
While at Mt. Sinai, Green studied hematopoietic stem cell ontogeny and the molecular regulation of erythropoiesis. For his doctoral studies, he investigated the bone pathophysiology of sickle cell disease during skeletal development and therapeutic interventions.
Green is the recipient of many fellowships and awards including an National Institutes or Health Diversity Supplement Award and an National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. He is professionally involved in many societies and organizations, including the Society for Biomaterials and American Society of Hematology. He is a member of the National Black Postdoc Association and a founding member of the Black Postdoc Association at the Icahn School of Medicine, where he also serves as an HBCU Engagement Initiative Committee Member.
Green received his B.S. in biology from Morehouse College, and his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from The City College of New York.
Dr. Olivia Lanier is currently a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Colorado School of Mines. In the fall, she will work with Professor Nicholas Peppas, who directs the Institute for Biomaterials, Drug Delivery and Regenerative Medicine.
Lanier’s research involves development of nanoparticles that can adapt their surface chemistry in response to their environment for enhanced drug delivery to the eye. She has also worked on synthesis of microparticles for the release of vaccine and immunostimulatory adjuvant, with a goal of creating a single-dose vaccine, and on different contact lens formulations for release of various therapeutics to the eye.
Lanier is a recipient of the University of Florida National Science Foundation Emerging STEM Scholar Award, a member of the Chemical and Biological Engineering Diversity and Inclusion Committee at Colorado School of Mines, and co-founder of the University of Florida Biomedical Engineering Diversity and Inclusion Initiative. She has presented at international conferences such as TERMIS in Kyoto, Japan and mentored 13 undergraduate students in the lab who are included as co-authors on her publications.
She received her B.S. degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering from Ohio University and her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Florida.
