Department of Biomedical Engineering

Jennifer Kang-Mieler, George Meade Bond Endowed Professor and Chair of Stevens’ Department of Biomedical Engineering, was selected as a 2025 ARVO Foundation Honoree at the organization’s annual meeting on Saturday, May 3 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) Annual Meeting is the premier gathering for eye and vision scientists from across the globe. Experts of all career stages, students and those in affiliated fields come to share their latest research findings and collaborate on innovative solutions. Kang-Mieler was honored during a gala dinner ahead of the meeting’s official beginning on May 4.

"This recognition is significant to me due to the considerable impact that ARVO has had on my scientific journey," said Kang-Mieler. "ARVO was the first scientific meeting I attended. I built amazing collaborations and friendships with leading scientists, engineers and clinicians at ARVO. ARVO is home for me."

ARVO Honorees are selected by the ARVO Foundation Board of Governors and are recognized for their commitment to ARVO and the ARVO Foundation, either through generous financial support, exemplary leadership of a Foundation initiative or dedication to endeavors that represent the mission of the Foundation.

ARVO put together a five-minute tribute video of Kang-Mieler, which can be viewed at https://youtu.be/JoRwTBBIYVQ.

Carrie E. Perlman, an associate professor in Stevens’ Department of Biomedical Engineering, was recently named a 2025 fellow by the American Thoracic Society (ATS). Perlman serves on and previously chaired an ATS committee that reviews research and clinical project proposals. She is also a member of an ATS committee that advocates for basic and translational research through varied ATS channels.

The ATS is a leading international medical society dedicated to advancing global respiratory research, patient care and public health.

Perlman leads the Lung Mechanics Laboratory, where she and her group combine mechanical, physiological and biophysical analysis is studying the lungs. In particular, they study the role of surface tension in ventilation injury of edematous lungs –lungs with fluid buildup – and are testing a new surface-tension lowering therapeutic. She previous chaired the Biomedical Engineering doctoral program at Stevens and served as a standing member of an NIH study section.

"I’m pleased to be recognized by the American Thoracic Society for my contributions to respiratory research," said Perlman. "I look forward to yet more exciting discoveries in the future."

Jinho Kim, an assistant professor in Stevens’ Department of Biomedical Engineering, is working with Mount Sinai in New York City as part of a $915,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to investigate stem-cell therapy solutions for patients suffering from severe tracheal injuries.

Currently, the only options for patients with extensive tracheal lesions are tracheotomy or palliative care. However, recent efforts involving stem cell-based bioengineered tracheas have demonstrated promising results, giving hope that stem cell therapy could potentially construct improved tracheal grafts for transplantation.

The team’s research focuses on the current limitations in this field: the scarcity of airway epithelial cells available for transplantation and the lack of a functional bioengineered trachea for replacement. The team has already successfully cultivated and expanded derived lung progenitors that can be converted to airway stem cells in a laboratory. These progenitors (hPSC-LPs) can be differentiated into various epithelial cells.

Kim and the team will compare and evaluate the efficiency of the cell-replacement technique they developed. They will further analyze the engraftment, expansion and differentiation potential of implanted hPSC-LPs within the bioengineered tracheal tissue, both in laboratory settings and in live animal models.

The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) Foundation has selected Jennifer Kang-Mieler, chair and professor in Stevens’ Department of Biomedical Engineering, as one of its 2025 ARVO Foundation Honorees. This is the highest honor bestowed by the ARVO Foundation.

ARVO is the largest and most respected eye and vision research organization in the world with a membership including nearly 12,000 researchers from more than 60 countries. ARVO advances research worldwide into understanding the visual system and preventing, treating and curing ocular disorders.

This honor comes on the heels of Kang-Mieler’s $2.2 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 grant alongside fellow Biomedical Engineering professor Yu Gan to study to combat vision loss in infants. Additionally, Kang-Mieler and her research team are developing ocular drug delivery systems for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and enhancing imaging methods for early diabetic retinopathy (DR) detection. Both projects are also supported by NIH R01 grants.

“I have been fortunate to work with ARVO for years in various roles, including Board of Trustees and Vice President,” said Kang-Mieler. “I am honored and thrilled to have been selected as one of the 2025 ARVO Foundation Honorees.”