Dr. Kelsey DeFrates is a bioengineering and biomaterials specialist, with PhD training at the University of California, Berkeley and post-doctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco.  She has received many honors to date, including a Goldwater Scholarship while an undergraduate student at Rowan University, and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.  Dr. DeFrates has a strong record of accomplishments in the areas of biomaterials and designing materials for drug delivery, as well as work on understanding bacterial biomechanics and mechanobiology, and their role in disease.  At CCNY Dr. DeFrates will focus on developing a novel research program that leverages her background in biomaterials engineering and drug delivery to design materials that control the release of probiotic organisms to treat diseases.  This cutting-edge approach in 'living materials,' composites made with living cells and non-living scaffolds, has many applications in biomedical areas as well as more broadly in environmental and sustainability areas.  Dr. DeFrates is currently completing an NIH F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship grant and will join the BME Department in 2027. 

Dr. Kevin Costa has a distinguished record in research, mentoring, and teaching, having been with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in Surgery and Cardiology since 2009, after starting his career in 1999 as a founding faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University.  He has made seminal scientific contributions in complementary areas including:  1) Cardiac tissue and organoid engineering for human disease modeling and therapeutic discovery;  2) Atomic force microscopy for microscale cell and tissue mechanobiology and disease mechanisms;  and 3) Computational modeling of cardiac mechanics and advanced manufacturing of bioinspired metamaterials for cardiac repair.  Dr. Costa has been funded by the NIH as principal investigator or co-investigator continuously since 2002 and has had considerable other research funding over the years (NSF CAREER, Whitaker Foundation, Additional Ventures).  Dr. Costa has substantial translational research experience and is the co-founder and CSO of Novoheart US Corp., which created the first human cardiac tissue engineering technology with data accepted by the FDA for ongoing first-in-human gene therapy trials for heart failure.  Dr. Costa will help expand the BME department’s expertise in cardiovascular engineering and entrepreneurship, and will also strengthen CCNY's related research in biomaterials, nanotechnology, mechanobiology, and regenerative medicine.  

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CONTACT INFORMATION

Steinman Hall, Room ST-401
Mailing Address: 160 Convent Avenue
Physical Address: 275 Convent Avenue (at W. 140th St)
New York, NY 10031

For more information about the BME B.E. program contact:
Dr. Phillip Payton, Administrative Director/Undergraduate Advisor, 212.650.5283, bme@ccny.cuny.edu

For more information about the BME M.S. program contact:
Prof. Bingmei Fu, Master's Advisor, 212.650.7531, bfu@ccny.cuny.edu

For more information about the Master's in Translational Medicine (MTM) program contact:
Prof. Chris Fritton, MTM Program Director, 212.650.5612, jfritton@ccny.cuny.edu

For more information about the BME Ph.D. program contact:
Prof. Lucas Parra, Ph.D. Advisor, 212.650.7211, bmephd@ccny.cuny.edu

For general information about the BME Department contact:
Ms. Patricia Cupid, Administrative Specialist, 212.650.6707, pcupid@ccny.cuny.edu

Prof. Susannah Fritton, Department Chair, 212.650.5213, fritton@ccny.cuny.edu