Written by Hannah Weems
Khanh Tu Nguyen was named UAB’s School of Engineering Graduate Student of the Year for the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Engineering Council of Birmingham’s (ECOB) 63rd Annual Awards Banquet.
Khanh Tu Nguyen is presented the BME Graduate Student of the Year plaque by Dean Jeff Holmes at the 2022 ECOB Banquet.Nguyen is pursuing her Ph.D. and works as a graduate research assistant in the UAB Tissue and Organ Chip Bioengineering Laboratory where, in addition to doing research, she mentors graduate and undergraduate students in biomedical engineering. She is the recipient of various scholarships and honors, such as the UAB Blazer Fellowship, UAB Graduate Student Government Travel Grant and the International University of VNU-HCM Women in Engineering Award.
Since 2018, Nguyen has worked in the laboratory of Palaniappan Sethu, Ph.D., professor of Biomedical Engineering, where she carries out various independent and collaborative translational research projects focused on the development of human vessel-on-a-chip models to study cardiovascular disease conditions associated with large arterial vessels. She has published more than ten papers and conference abstracts and has served as president of the UAB Biomedical Engineering Graduate Society and as editor-in-chief of the Biomedical Engineering Newsletter for the International University of VNU-HCM.
“Khanh is the type of student you really want in your lab,” says Dr. Palaniappan Sethu. “She is talented, intelligent and hardworking, but her best attribute is her persistence. She sets challenging goals and works diligently to achieve them. She is very sociable and makes our lab a fun and vibrant environment. She is destined for big things and we are glad to have had her train in our lab.”