Andrea J
- Research Program Mentor

PhD at University of Washington

Expertise

nanotechnology; medicine; microbiology; brain disease; diseases of the mom, fetus, or infant

Bio

Andrea Joseph received her PhD in Chemical Engineering in 2021 from the University of Washington. Her research focused on the development of nanotechnology to address drug delivery challenges to the brain: for example, the blood-brain barrier prevents >99% of FDA-approved drugs from accessing brain tissue. She successfully developed two drug-loaded, biodegradable, polymeric nanomedicines with efficacy against neonatal brain injury, which are both currently protected by a provisional patent. She is now interested in the application of nanomedicine for the prevention of preterm birth, the leading cause of neonatal morbidity & mortality. She conducts this work as a postdoctoral researcher at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In her free time, Andrea loves traveling and spending time with her friends and family. She also plays tennis and, more recently, pickleball. Outside of these activities, you can usually find her trying a new restaurant or on the couch watching Netflix!

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Do maternal medications influence fetal development?

Pregnant people are not typically included in clinical trials of new drugs due to an abundance of caution regarding effects to the fetus. However, this has resulted in a lack of information on which drugs can be safely tolerated by the fetus, especially when they are essential to the mother's health (i.e. antidepressants, antibiotics, blood pressure medication). One recent example is the COVID-19 vaccine, which was not recommended for pregnant individuals until several months after being approved for all adults, despite COVID-19 being more severe during pregnancy. In this project, the student will conduct a thorough literature search of all medications which do and do not cross the placenta in order to create a database for other researchers. The output of this project will be the online database and a written report.

Teaching experience

I have over a decade's worth of experience tutoring high schoolers in English, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, the full math sequence (Algebra, Algebra 2, Geometry, Trig/Pre-calc, Calc, and Statistics), study skills/ time management, and test (ACT/SAT) prep. I also have mentored several undergraduates in math, science, and engineering courses and in a research lab setting. The bulk of this work was done with the Johns Hopkins Peer-Led Tutoring Program, as a Teaching Assistant in college & grad school, as an independent contractor for ATAC Inc in Seattle, WA, and as a graduate student in the Nance Lab at the University of Washington.

Credentials

Work experience

University of Pennsylvania (2021 - Current)

Postdoctoral Researcher

International Business Machines (2015 - 2015)

Process Engineering Intern

Education

Johns Hopkins University

BS Bachelor of Science (2016)

Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

University of Washington

MS Master of Science (2018)

Chemical Engineering