Stephanie Willerth elected Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering
December 12, 2023
Joining an esteemed group of Fellows numbering fewer than 500 worldwide, Dr. Stephanie Willerth (Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering) has recently been elected as a prestigious Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering (FBSE) by the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering (IUSBSE).
“It’s a huge honor to be recognized as one of the top biomaterials scientists in the world,” she says. “I have been working with various of types of biomaterials since I was an undergraduate at MIT in the early 2000s.”
Willerth is an international expert in using novel biomaterials to engineer neural tissue engineering from stem cells. Her interdisciplinary research has developed novel bioprinting techniques for generating functional models of healthy and diseased neural tissues. She is the first person from UVic to ever be elected a Fellow of IUBSE.
"My career has focused on ways to engineer tissues in dish that mimic the function of those found in the body,” she explains. “One of our major areas of research is engineering neural tissues from stem cells and we have recently turned to 3D bioprinting as way to produce these tissues in a rapid and reproducible fashions.”
Active at UVic and in her field, she has consistently demonstrated leadership both within and outside the classroom with a long list of top accomplishments to her name.
She is a member of the steering committee of the B.C. Regenerative Medicine Initiative and the Stem Cell Network. She serves as a staff scientist at Creative Destruction Lab. She also served as the Acting Director of the Centre for Biomedical Research and the Biomedical Engineering undergraduate program at UVic (2018-2021) and as the President of Canadian Biomaterials Society (2018-2019).
In 2021, she was elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars and Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C. awarded her their Teaching Award of Excellence later that same year. In 2022, she became a Fellow in the Canadian Society of Senior Engineers.
“It’s an exciting time to be working in B.C. right now,” she says. “There’s a new biomanufacturing facility being developed on Victoria with support from the province, a growing biomedical and tech sector, many expanding opportunities for collaborative and dynamic research partnerships with the public and private sectors and UVic’s Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science is growing and evolving in many exciting and dynamic ways.”
Willerth’s recent career highlights have included earning a UVic REACH award for a translational partnership with Aspect Biosystems, founding and spinning out a successful startup company from her research group (Axolotl Biosciences) and serving as President of the Canadian Biomaterials Society when their annual general meeting was hosted in Victoria, as well as advising the B.C. Chapter of the Canadian Biomaterials Society.
At UVic, she is a passionate educator and innovator and particularly enjoys nurturing student talent. She founded UVic’s Biomedical Engineering undergraduate program, helping to encourage more women and underrepresented groups to pursue engineering as a career.
“I love working with our students as they are awesome and full of ideas and energy,” she says. “Victoria has an amazing community working in biotech that has grown along with the establishment of the Biomedical Engineering program. We collaborate with local companies like Starfish Medical on our Human Factors in Medical Device course and we also have strong ties to Island Health.”
Looking ahead, in addition to finishing her second book (Handbook of Neural Engineering: A Modern Approach), she has a number of exciting research projects in development focused on human health and well-being.
“I’m excited right now about our projects focused on bioprinting neural models of Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s disease as a tool to identify potential treatments for these devastating diseases,” she says. “We are also collaborating with UBC on bioprinting cardiac tissue models and with the Ministry of Forests to generate novel bioinks for printing bone and cartilage tissues. I’m excited to see where things with Axolotl Biosciences go and we continue to develop our products and expand in the future.”
As a brand new Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering, she is looking forward to continuing to lead and innovate in her field.
“It is a nice honor that reflects my significant contributions to the field during my career so far and I think there is more exciting work to come as we continue to develop our bioprinting technologies,” she says. “I hope to continue to have an impact in the fields of biomaterials and tissue engineering as my career progresses.”
The honorary status of “Fellow, Biomaterials Science and Engineering” (FBSE) was established in 1992 by the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering (IUSBSE). Fellows are recognized for their excellent professional standing and high achievements in the field of biomaterials science and engineering. Dr. Willerth will officially become a new Fellow at the Fellows induction ceremony, which will take place as part of the opening of the World Biomaterials Congress (WBC2024) in Daegu, South Korea in May 2024.
Story by Ivan Watson