The TARE Lab welcomed US Congressional Staffers from the offices of Sen. Murray, Rep. Smith, Rep. Jayapal, Rep. Schrier, Rep. Strickland, and Rep. Larsen to ISCRM and shared our research on women's musculoskeletal health. Thank you for your work supporting science in WA state!

The TARE Lab went to Happy Lemon to celebrate Anika Shah's last day as our Research Scientist. Anika has been an essential member on several projects and an amazing mentor in the lab since 2024. We'll miss her here, but we're so excited for her bright future as a doctor!

Congrats to our summer ISCRM REU undergrad, Elizabeth Chuesh on her final poster presentation! Elizabeth has learned so much this summer and brought joy and curiosity to the lab. We're excited she'll be staying on with the lab for the coming academic year!

Congratulations to Jordan Vanni, who passed her Molecular Engineering and Sciences Doctoral Preliminary Exam last week! We are so proud of your hard work and the knowledge you've gained in your first year.

The TARE lab took advantage of the great weather to go out to lunch at the classic Seattle summer spot, Tacos Chukis, just a short walk from the lab! More celebrations of our recent graduates.

TARE Lab PhD student Janie Johnson enjoyed learning about multiscale biomechanics and mechanobiology projects from around the world and was able to share her first year of work at the World Congress of Biomechanics in Vancouver, BC, Canada last week!

More pictures from the UW School of Medicine hooding ceremony! Can't believe it's already been a month since our latest graduates received their PhDs!

We are so excited for #WCB2026 in Vancouver this week! Janie Johnson will be presenting on her work to develop in vitro mechanobiological models of the aftermath of meniscus injury.

Congratulations to all our 2026 graduates! We are so proud of you and can't wait to cheer on your next steps!

Dr. John Bradford, Ph.D. successfully defended his dissertation "Developing an in vitro model for regeneration of the avascular human knee meniscus with sex-biased implications" May 29th. We are so proud of Dr. Bradford and grateful for his boundless curiosity and enthusiasm!

Our first year cohort showed up for ISCRM Symposium! The TARE Lab presented a total of 5 posters, one from each of our first year PhD students and our research scientist. Cheers to the end of a great first year, keep up the good work!

First year MolES PhD Student Madelyn Atkins and Research Scientist Anika Shah represented the TARE lab at the annual UW ISCRM Symposium last week with both lightning talks and posters!

3rd year undergraduate Marisa Valenzano presented her first poster at the UW Undergraduate Research Symposium last week! We are so proud of not only her great presentation, but all her work characterizing and modulating the mechanical properties of our PHA hydrogel system. Great work Marisa!

Dr. Kyley Burkey was awarded the Society For Biomaterials Orthopaedic SIG Best Presentation Award at the April annual meeting and will be presenting her talk again at the webinar below! Thanks to the organizers for highlighting her work.

In April we celebrated the completion of both Dr. Burkey and Dr. Meinhold's PhDs with a rooftop potluck and games! We are so proud of these two and grateful for the joy and energy they've brought to the lab, in addition to all their hard work.

Ph.D. Candidate(!) Susy Simmonds-Bohorquez successfully gave her general exam last week! We are so excited for her continued work in partnership with co-advisor Dr. Ron Kwon and the Musculoskeletal Systems Biology Lab. Go Susy!

Janie Johnson has received the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP)! This prestigious fellowship seeks to fund graduate students with promisingly impactful careers in research and beyond. We are proud to see Janie's efforts recognized at the national level! See more: sites.uw.edu/jrobins1/202...

Congratulations to Dr. Kyley Burkey, who successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis April 2nd and is returning to KU to complete her M.D.! We are so proud of our future double doctor! Please read the lab's full message to Dr. Burkey here: sites.uw.edu/jrobins1/202...

Susy, Katherine, Janie, and Dr. Robinson represented the TARE Lab at yesterday’s US Soccer #shebelieves summit. We also cheered on the USWNT in their friendly against Japan on Tuesday with over 36,000 friends—the most attended standalone women’s sporting event in Seattle history!

Check out Dr. Katherine Meinhold's feature on UW BioE about her recent SFB Award: bioe.uw.edu/meinhold-rec...

We also enjoyed our time at @orssociety.bsky.social in Charlotte! Anika was nominated for a research award in the meniscus section of presentations, and Susy and John had successful poster sessions. See more from both conferences on our website here: sites.uw.edu/jrobins1/202...

What a great experience at the SFB Annual Meeting in Atlanta! We're grateful for moments like these that bring the biomaterials community together. Congratulations once more to Dr. Katherine Meinhold for receiving the Student Award for Outstanding Research!

Next up, we're also at ORS in Charlotte this weekend! We're looking forward to our research engineer Anika's oral presentation and two posters from graduate students Susy and John. Come talk to us about our exciting work on meniscus regeneration! #ORS2026 @orssociety.bsky.social

We're excited to be in Atlanta at the SFB Annual Meeting this week! #SFB2026 Highlights: Dr. Katherine Meinhold is receiving the Student Award for Outstanding Research. Katherine, Dr. Robinson, and Kyley will share their work in sessions throughout the week. Hope to see you there!

Proudly introducing Dr. Katherine Meinhold, Ph.D.! Katherine successfully defended her thesis entitled "Modulating electrospun fiber scaffolds to mimic native meniscus properties and engineer an in vitro injury model" Monday. We are so proud of her and grateful for all her hard work. Congrats!

We enjoyed running our Fun with Fiber activity at an ISCRM outreach event in February! Middle schoolers compared fiber properties across three different fiber-making methods: cotton candy, hot glue, and silly string!

We had so much fun at our TARE Lab Holiday Potluck this weekend! We're also excited to welcome two new students to the lab this quarter, Madelyn and Frida. Happy new year all!

PhD candidate John Bradford representing the TARE Lab at Tuesday Noon @uwiscrm.bsky.social seminar last month. His work developing an in vitro model of discoid meniscus will allow us to explore regeneration in this historically understudied condition. Great presentation, John!

PhD candidate John Bradford presented a poster and lightning talk on his discoid meniscus in vitro model and the fascinating mystery of avascular regeneration in discoid meniscus at TERMIS @termisam.bsky.social this week. Great work John!

And just like that, first year PhD student Jordan Vanni has presented her first graduate school poster! Jordan recently shared the results of her summer project at Cascadia 6.0. Congrats Jordan!