Siebel Scholars

Siebel scholarships are prestigious awards that honor about 100 of the top graduate students nationwide in business, bioengineering, computer science, and energy science programs. Recipients receive a $35,000 award based on their outstanding academic performance and leadership.

The 2020 recipients include three students from the Institute for NanoBioTechnology. All three recipients are PhD candidates in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and include Morgan Elliott, David Wilson, and Chrissy O’Keefe.

Coronary artery disease is the leading cause of death and results in over half a million coronary artery bypass surgeries each year. To help these patients, Elliott’s research is to improve the clinical and commercial application of small-diameter tissue-engineered vascular grafts, which has become increasingly complex to fabricate. She and her team are now working to validate these grafts in a large animal study (Go to pages 8–9 to learn more about this research).

Wilson’s research has him engineering materials for the safe and effective delivery of genetic cargoes to treat a wide range of human diseases from cancer to genetic disorders. The materials he invented are currently being used in preclinical studies for novel cancer therapies, treatment of retinal diseases, and for delivery of innovative vaccine platforms.

O’Keefe and her team develop technology to identify rare indicators of disease, especially cancer. They have developed a platform that can detect when part of a person’s DNA starts to deviate from its normal state. She uses microfluidic technologies to increase the sensitivity of these tests so that even rare disease molecules in a simple blood sample could be detected.

Morgan Elliott (top), David Wilson (middle), and Chrissy O’Keefe (bottom).