Past Spotlights on Biomedical Engineering

Oudin's lab at Tufts University

Student highlight

Name: Justinne Renee Guarin
Degree: Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering
Faculty lab: Tiampo Family Assistant Professor Madeleine Oudin
Hometown: Lexington, MA

Why Tufts?
It was clear when I first visited that the school valued people of all backgrounds and experiences. Tufts is highly interdisciplinary and encourages collaboration between departments as well as other schools. I felt like I belonged even though I did not come from an engineering background in undergrad.

Favorite thing about living in the Medford/Somerville and Boston area?
Proximity to nearby schools for collaboration and all the food!

Any advice you’d give to prospective students or new graduate students?
Make time to do the things you love so that you can maintain a healthy lifestyle around your research. I was able to balance playing for Tufts Women’s Ultimate Frisbee while making good progress with my research and made some great friends through it! I am also very fortunate to have an advisor that understands and supports a healthy work-life balance.

Oudin with student at Tufts University

Faculty highlight

Name: Tiampo Family Assistant Professor Madeleine Oudin
Research interests: Cancer biology, the tumor microenvironment, and mechanisms of metastasis and drug resistance.

About Professor Oudin:
Madeleine Oudin's graduate research focused on understanding the interplay between multiple signaling pathways in driving neuronal cell migration in response to growth factors during adult neurogenesis. Following the completion of her Ph.D. from King's College London, she completed postdoctoral studies in Professor Frank Gertler’s lab at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. There, she investigated the process of cancer metastasis to understand what tumor cells are likely to metastasize, what pathways render them highly invasive and sensitive to local guidance cues, and how the presence of highly metastatic cells might affect response to therapy.

Read a Q&A with Professor Oudin on bringing a biologist's perspective to biomedical engineering!