Professor Jeannine Coburn
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Principal Investigator, Functional Biomaterials Lab at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Dr. Jeannine M. Coburn is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute with a collaborative appointment in Chemical Engineering. She is the Principal Investigator of the Functional Biomaterials Lab at WPI, where the overall objectives of her research are to develop clinically translatable tissue regeneration and drug delivery strategies, and three-dimensional, in vitro human disease models using biologically-derived biomaterials.
Professor Coburn had a non-traditional path into STEM. She attended a vocational high school, which she said helped her visualize engineering better later in her studies as a PhD student at Johns Hopkins University and as a post-doc at Tufts University. She is the first in her immediate family to receive a four-year degree. When I asked to take Professor Coburn’s portrait, she asked, “Is this going to be published where younger girls might see it?” I replied yes. So she walked me over to her lab and said, “Then let’s take the picture here, in my lab.”
“Carefully utilize negative feedback.”
Professor’s Coburn favorite piece of advice.