Biomaterials for Women’s Health Engineering

Dr. Samantha Zambuto is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Kentucky and a Lighthouse Beacon Foundation Scholar. Prior to joining the University of Kentucky, Dr. Zambuto was a T32 postdoctoral fellow in the Clinical Outcomes Research Training Program in Female Lower Urinary Tract Disorders at Washington University in St. Louis. She received her PhD from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Dissertation: ‘Biomaterial-based Models of the Endometrium and Trophoblast Invasion to Investigate Early Pregnancy’). She received her bachelor’s degree in biological engineering from Cornell University, her master’s degree in biomedical engineering from Brown University, and her Master of Population Health Sciences at Washington University School of Medicine. She is deeply committed to improving health equity in science and seeks to use engineering techniques to understand pregnancy, childbirth, the female reproductive system, and other aspects of women’s health by creating sophisticated tissue engineered models of the uterus, vagina, female lower urinary tract, and placenta.

Michelle is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Wayne State University.  She began her faculty career in the UK at the University of Cambridge (2006–18). She returned to the US in 2018 and was briefly at East Carolina University and Washington University in St. Louis before finding her home in Detroit. Michelle has degrees in Materials Science and Engineering (BS), Engineering Mechanics (MS), and a PhD in Biophysical Sciences. She has worked on many problems in tissue biomechanics and biomimetic materials; she has researched engineering approaches to pregnancy and women’s health for over twenty-five years, particularly in methods to prevent, diagnose, and intervene in preterm birth. Current research projects include multi-scale modeling of placenta transport function, machine learning of clinical ultrasound scans, biomimetic composite hydrogels for reproductive tissue engineering, microstructural fracture models of uterine-placental interface delamination, and developing digital twins of C-section scar pregnancy.  Michelle is a leader in organizing the women’s health and engineering community both in the U.S. and globally.