The LeDuc Lab, Philip LeDuc as PI

Congratulations to Christopher Bettinger on his new role as Vice President of Biotechnology at the Novo Nordisk Foundation! It has been a pleasure to have known you in academia over the past 20 years, and I wish you all the best in this exciting next chapter.

Congratulations to our lab members Mangalam Sahai and Moaiad Alabbasi for presenting at the CMU MechE PhD Symposium this year! It was great seeing them share their work, connect with other researchers, and represent our lab.

Congratulations to Mark DeAngelis for his recent publication in Advanced Intelligent Systems! He created an automated robotic system for rapid scientific experimentation with multicellular organisms.

Congratulations to Nathan Zimmerer, a PhD student in the LeDuc Lab, for being awarded a renewal of his TL1 Trainee grant under Pittsburgh's Center for Training in Kidney, Urology, and Hematology (PCT-KUH)!

We’re excited to introduce Michelle Chang! She is a PhD student in the RI. Her current research focuses on reconfigurable microfluidic modules that can act as sensing mechanisms, with applications in interactive tactile interfaces and chemical sensing on unconventional surfaces.

Congrats to Andres Garcia on his first-author paper toward segmenting transparent 3D-printed ice in videos. Read the paper here: doi.org/10.1021/cbmi.5…

Honored to be chosen as a commencement speaker at North Carolina State University. It was a wonderful ceremony celebrating the accomplishments of so many graduates. Great spending time down in Raleigh and being a part of this special day!

We’re excited to introduce James Votruba-Drzal, a PhD student in Materials Science and Engineering, co-advised by Dr. LeDuc and Dr. Ozdoganlar! James is working on the ARPA-H LIVE liver printing project. Welcome, James!

Congratulations to Dr. Latifah Almaghrabi on successfully defending her Ph.D. thesis, "Interdisciplinary Approaches to Address Whole Organism Mechanosensation and Spinal Cord Regeneration!" 🎉

Congratulations to our PhD Student Alex Naglich on his T32 Training Grant! Alex is working on integrating microscale technology with cell biology, exploring using microfluidics to help understand the effects of mechanical forces on the body.

Wonderful spending time with so many amazing people from industry and academia at the recent AIMBE BEMA Roundtable Meeting on “Building Supply Chain Resilience in the Medical Device Industry” in DC. Fascinating discussions that are so important to biotech. Great seeing you all!

Congratulations to Dr. Richard Desatnik on successfully defending his thesis titled “Creating Soft Robotic Architecture for Locomotion and Grasping to Further Bioinspired and Paleobionic Applications.” #SoftRobotics #BioinspiredDesign #Paleobionics #CMU

We’re excited to welcome Dr. Fangran Liu (Sandra) as a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr. Philip LeDuc and Dr. Burak Ozdoganlar! Originally from China, she holds an MD, MPhil, and PhD, and studies vascularization, 3D printing, and biomaterials. Welcome, Fangran!

Mangalam Sahai, a PhD student from our lab, presented his work at the BMES conference earlier this month! This work depicts how machine learning can help uncover subtle vascular patterns linked to maternal health outcomes. #BMES #machinelearning #medicaldiagnosis

Great to celebrate with friends at the National Academy of Engineering-Frontiers of Engineering 30 year reception. What an amazing program from @theNAEng, and I was honored to go to these over the years. #NAE #frontiersofengineering #mechanicalengineering #CMU

We’re thrilled to welcome Maria Parilli to the LeDuc Lab! 🎉 She’s starting her CMU Portugal Dual PhD co-advised by Profs. LeDuc, Spielberg, Marques & Fonseca. Her research focuses on advanced control & optimization. Excited to see her journey unfold! 🚀

We are excited to share that Mangalam Sahai, PhD student in the LeDuc Lab, has been awarded the prestigious TCS Presidential Fellowship at CMU for 2025-26! 🎉 This honor recognizes his research using deep learning to automate preeclampsia diagnosis via placental biomarkers of DV.

The LeDuc Lab enjoyed our annual summer group trip with a horseback riding adventure at Rolling Hills Ranch! This was a great chance to step away from the lab and connect beyond research.

One of our PhD students, Mark DeAngelis, co-chaired a special session at the International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales (MARSS) with lab alum Dr. Warren Ruder! This was a great opportunity to share our work with the robotics community!

Phil was a Facilitator for Scialog: Automating Chemical Laboratories, a conference focused on advancing the future of scientific research through innovation and collaboration. Here he is pictured with fellow Faciliators, Karl Mueller (Middle) and Nancy Washton (Right)!