Congratulations to Dr. Rebecca Wachs, a former postdoctoral associate with Pruitt Family Professor and Department Chair, Dr. Christine E. Schmidt, who has joined the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as an assistant professor in biological systems engineering.

Wachs earned her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on the mechanisms of low back pain, and her B.S. in mechanical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She worked for a medical device company, RTI Surgical, Inc., as a senior engineer in research and development. For the past two years, Wachs has pursued postdoctoral studies at the University of Florida Biomedical Engineering department in the Schmidt Lab. Wachs’ research vision is to use her diverse skills in orthopedics, neural engineering, and clinical translation to develop novel interventions for the treatment of low back pain. She proposes to target this pain with three major arms of research: engineered biomaterials to prevent and reverse nerve growth, targeted delivery of antioxidants to modulate inflammation, and development of in vitro test beds to mimic disease progression.

Congratulations, Dr. Wachs!