Seminar Detail

Abstract: Hydrogels are versatile soft materials with applications spanning regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, and environmental science. Recent advances in biofabrication and bioprinting techniques have enabled the development of innovative hydrogel-based systems that can mimic complex biological environments. These engineered materials provide tunable platforms to study microbial collectives, host-pathogen interactions, and cell-material dynamics in physiologically and environmentally relevant 3D settings. This seminar will highlight my work designing hydrogels for biofabrication and bioprinting applications, focusing on their use to create in vitro models of microbial collectives. By leveraging advanced fabrication techniques, we develop biomaterials that allow precise spatial control, microscale porosity, and tailored mechanical properties to replicate native habitats. These systems facilitate the study of microbial behavior, such as chemotaxis, in controlled yet dynamic environments. Additionally, I will discuss collaborative efforts to integrate experimental models with theoretical frameworks. Using insights from our hydrogel-based platforms, we work to develop computational models that simulate microbial collective dynamics in 3D, providing a complementary tool to predict and analyze behavior in engineered and natural systems. Together, these approaches bridge biofabrication, biomaterial science, and computational modeling to advance our understanding of microbial communities and inspire new applications in bioengineering and environmental science.

Bio: Victoria G. Muir, Ph.D., started as an Assistant Professor at University of Delaware Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in September 2024. The Muir Lab explores how cells and materials dynamically interact with biologically relevant environments in space and time, accomplished through hydrogel biomaterials engineering and biofabrication approaches. She completed her doctoral degree in 2022 as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania under the advisement of Prof. Jason Burdick (now at University of Colorado – Boulder). Subsequently, she pursued postdoctoral studies at Princeton University as a Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the lab of Prof. Sujit Datta (now at Caltech). She received her B.ChE. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware in 2018. Victoria has received multiple recognitions for her scholarship, research, and leadership, including the AIChE 35 Under 35 Award, the Poddar Award for Rising Star in Chemical Engineering (AIChE), and the Solomon R. Pollack Award for Excellence in Graduate Bioengineering Research (University of Pennsylvania).