Presidential Fellowship Award Winners!

Posted: 

Congratulations to PhD candidates Hoda Hatoum and Chris Bobba, for being named Presidential Fellowship Awardees! The Presidential Fellowship is the most prestigious award given by the Ohio State University Graduate School. Recipients of this award embody the highest standards of scholarship. This fellowship recognizes outstanding scholarship and research ability and provides recipients the opportunity to devote full time to their dissertation research.

Awarded competitively, the Presidential Fellowship gives fellows one year of full-time financial support so they can complete their dissertations or terminal degree projects unimpeded by other duties. 

Hoda Hatoum is a graduate student in mechanical engineering and is advised by associate professor Lakshmi Prasad Dasi, Department of Biomedical

image1.jpg
Hoda Hatoum
Engineering (BME). Hatoum received her B.S. in mechanical engineering in the American University of Beirut in Beirut, Lebanon and I started her PhD in August 2015 at The Ohio State University. Her research interests mainly involve the development of transcatheter aortic valve (TAVR) field through better understanding the influence of valve implantation along with patient-specific factors on blood fluid mechanics in the aortic root. Transcatheter aortic valve therapy emerged as a percutaneous alternative for open heart surgery that is highly invasive and not suitable for all patients. TAVR is unfortunately often associated with adverse effects comprising elevated pressure gradients, paravalvular leakage, leaflet thrombosis (clot formation on the leaflet preventing it from fully opening when required), platelet activation due to high turbulent stresses and many others. To help understand these adverse effects, hemodynamic assessment is performed experimentally using the left heart simulator flow loop under physiological pressure and flow conditions in addition to particle image velocimetry (PIV) to visualize main jet and sinus flow. Post graduation, Hatoum plans to find a postdoc position, eventually being hired into a faculty position and furthering her research career. 

Chris Bobba’s research deals with the minimization of harm of mechanical

chis_bobba.jpg
Chris Bobba
ventilation of patients in the ICU. Specifically, they are trying to understand how the mechanical forces cause cells to react in an inflammatory manner. They are also working towards a type of gene therapy that will work on mitigating that specific inflammation.

Bobba completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Rhode Island where he studied Chemical Engineering. Following completion of his degree, he began the Medical Scientist Training Program (MTSP) in 2013. Over the summer of 2013, Bobba rotated through the lab of Dr. Samir Ghadali, professor for the Department of BME and Director of Graduate Studies in BME. Bobba immediately knew this is where he wanted to complete his thesis work. He left the lab for about a year and a half to complete the first half of medical school, and later returned in the spring of 2016.  He has been working with Dr. Ghadiali since. After graduating with his PhD from Dr. Ghadiali’s lab, Bobba plans to finish the second half of medical school. After graduating from there, he wishes to pursue a research-intensive residency in pulmonary/critical care medicine or cardiothoracic surgery.