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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Atlanta, GA | Posted: July 16, 2008
Although it has only been two years since Dr. Lakeshia Taite completed her doctoral and postdoctoral training, the native of Grove Hill, Alabama has already achieved an impressive number of accomplishments, including several awards. After earning her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where she participated in a computer-based honors program that included research experiences in chemistry and chemical engineering, she entered the graduate program at Rice University.
Dr. Taite completed her thesis work in bioengineering titled "Biocom-
patible Copolymers for Localized Cardiovascular Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering" in December 2005, and received the Ralph Budd Award for Best Engineering Thesis as well as the Outstanding Thesis in Bioengi-
neering award. Her research focused on development and application of nitric oxide-releasing materials for prevention of arterial disease and increasing patency of small-diameter vascular grafts, as well as development of biomimetic materials for the study of cellular interactions at the vascular wall. In addition to receiving two awards for her thesis, Dr. Taite was a National Science Foundation (NSF) Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) Fellow and an NSF Integrated Graduate Education Research Traineeship (IGERT) Fellow in Cellular Engineering while at Rice. She also participated in research activities within the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology.
Prior to defending her thesis, Dr. Taite completed an NSF IGERT-sponsored internship in 2005 in the Laboratory for Regenerative Medicine and Pharmacobiology (LMRP) at the Ecole Polytechnique F
