UW Bioengineering Ph.D. student Shivani Gupta has received the 2015 Ada I. Pressman Memorial Scholarship for the 2015-16 academic year. This $5,000 scholarship recognizes Shivani’s outstanding academic achievement and strong engineering potential.
Shivani is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow in Wendy Thomas’s lab, working on developing antibody mimics using a bacterial protein. Her goal is to develop a library of recognition proteins with switchable binding behavior by taking advantage of the allosteric protein FimH found in E. coli. These can then be used as an improved binding motif in many applications including bioseparation, diagnostics or drug delivery.
Shivani serves on the Department of Bioengineering Student Advisory Board. She also organizes industry-focused career development events for BioE graduate students through the Bioengineering Industry Relations Task Force. Outside of the department, she is heavily involved with Society of Women Engineers as an active long-time member and a Collegiate Leadership Coach, which involves coaching the UW section as well as other collegiate sections in the Pacific Northwest. In previous years she served as Graduate Student Coordinator for the society. She also co-leads Time to Invent at UW, an outreach program for 4th-5th grade girls to encourage their interest in science and invention.