During her PhD, Hannah advanced the state-of-the-art in articular cartilage repair by harnessing remote fields, such as magnetism and gravity. Using these non-invasive forces, she was able to control cell positioning within engineered tissues, similar to the cell patterns within native cartilage, and enhance the integration between cartilage and bone. Her work could be used in many tissue engineering applications to recreate complex tissues and tissue interfaces.
As a Schmidt Science Fellow, Hannah is working in the Burdick Lab in the BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she will pivot into applying three dimensional bioprinting to create tissue models of the knee joint. By developing new biofabrication strategies, this work will create a platform technology for studying the complex interplay between cell and tissue types in the knee after injury.
Hannah’s interest in orthopaedics began at a young age on the soccer field. She now aims to use her Fellowship research to not only push the field of orthopaedics forward, but to broaden undergraduate research opportunities for students, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds.