Nathan Witt, a PhD student in biomedical engineering and researcher in the 3MT lab, won first place in the PhD student competition earlier this month at the Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering, and Biotransport Conference (SB3C) in Vail, CO.
Suresh Raghavan, professor of biomedical engineering, said the following in a congratulatory message to Witt and his advisor Ed Sander: "This is a very competitive award at one of the premier bioengineering conferences that many of us frequent. As a long-time participant at this conference, I should mention that it is tough enough to earn a podium presentation at one of the PhD student sessions. But to win first place among the nation's top PhD candidates is impressive indeed."
According to conference organizers, 36 finalists were selected as the best among 220+ abstract submissions. The finalists then gave oral presentations in six different tracks (6 talks per track), and each track had a first place and two runners up.
Witt's talk was entitled "Mechanical Models of Collagen Networks for Understanding Changes in the Failure Properties of Aging Mouse Skin." He co-authored the abstract with Alan E. Woessner, Jacob Herrmann, Kyle P. Quinn, and Edward A. Sander.