Shivani Kottantharayil
Shivani is a senior majoring in Bioengineering with a focus on Nano and Molecular Engineering, and a minor in Music. She has been conducting research on protein-based hydrogels for drug delivery in the DeForest Lab since her freshman year. Her work sparked her interest in how protein engineering can be applied to treat diseases. Her current research project focuses on developing a stimuli-responsive, Boolean logic-based hydrogel that can respond to multiple inputs and be used for targeted drug delivery. She hopes that this hydrogel system will have applications in therapeutic drug delivery for treating diseases. She was fortunate to be funded by the Goldwater Scholarship and the Mary Gates Research Scholarship as she worked on this project, which is the basis of her capstone work.
As a career, Shivani hopes to become a professor and lead a lab focused on developing next-generation drug delivery systems. Pursuing a master's degree in the UK will help her work towards that goal by expanding her experience in protein engineering techniques before starting her PhD. Outside of academics, Shivani enjoys baking, reading, and exploring Seattle. She is also a violinist in the UW Philharmonia Orchestra, and enjoys playing the violin and piano in her free time.
Goals
After finishing her master's, Shivani plans to pursue a PhD in Bioengineering. Long term, she hopes to lead her own lab and conduct research on novel tissue engineering and regenerative medicine techniques to develop biomaterials with clinical applications.
Tips
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