On November 2nd, Courtney Johnson successfully presented his dissertation defense and was awarded his PhD! Coming from his Undergrad at Northeastern University, Courtney’s research focused on diabetes. Courtney earned the Clark fellowship and commenced on research exploring the effects of glucose on the mechanobiology of immune cells, in specific macrophages. His work was published in a review paper in Tissue Engineering B and a research paper in Tissue Engineering A, for which he won the Outstanding Student Award in 2022 TERMIS-AM Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Courtney’s research has been presented at BMES and TERMIS. Besides his academic work, Courtney is also involved with the scientific community at broad through the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). From 2018-2020 he was the National Programs Chair for NSBE, responsible for the society’s programmatic vision. Because of his determination and work in this organization, he was awarded the Mike Shinn Distinguished Member of the Year Award. Now that he has successfully defended, Courtney plans to submit two more research papers before his departure to a regulatory position at the FDA. Courtney was advised by Helim Aranda-Espinoza and John Fisher. Congrats, Courtney!