Olabisi Selected for 2020 NAE Symposium

July 2, 2020 – Ronke Olabisi, Samueli School assistant professor of biomedical engineering, is one of 85 of the nation’s brightest early career engineers selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) 26th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium.

Every year, NAE invites engineers who are performing exceptional research and technical work in a variety of disciplines to come together for the symposium. Participants – from industry, academia and government – are nominated by fellow engineers and organizations. The event, originally to be hosted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, in September, has been rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and will be held February 25-27, 2021, at the National Academies’ Beckman Center in Irvine, California.

“I was both humbled and honored to be considered, thrilled to be able to participate and meet all these incredible minds, and still looking forward to participating in a socially distanced manner,” said Olabisi, who joined the UC Irvine faculty early this year. Her research involves tissue engineering and regenerative medicine to repair or build de novo tissues for treating defects due to injury, disease, aging or spaceflight.

Olabisi, an NSF CAREER Awardee in 2018, was named a Young Innovator in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering by the Biomedical Engineering Society and a Johnson & Johnson Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Manufacturing and Design Scholar, both in 2019.

“The Frontiers of Engineering program brings together a talented group of young engineers from different technical areas to spark innovation and facilitate long-term collaborations,” said NAE President John L. Anderson. “These relationships are critical in developing creative engineering solutions to the world’s problems.”

This year’s symposium will address cutting-edge developments in four areas: Food for Thought: The AgRevolution Shaping What We (Will) Eat; Next-generation Energy Systems Integration; Engineering Innovation in Women’s Health; Plastics: Pollutions Challenges and Innovations.

The NAE is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, an independent, nonprofit organization chartered by Congress to provide objective analysis and advice to the nation on matters of science, technology and health.

– Megan Lohre