Dr. Hannah Zierden joined the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Maryland in 2022. Prior to joining UMD, Dr. Zierden earned her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2020 and completed postdoctoral research at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Now, her research group works at the interface of biology and engineering to develop next generation therapeutics to support gynecologic and obstetric health throughout the lifespan. With rational drug delivery at the core of their work, the Zierden Lab is particularly interested in how extracellular vesicles from both bacteria and mammalian cells facilitate disease, and how they can be leveraged as a novel drug delivery platform. Her group builds model systems to understand complex interactions between the host environment, the local microbiome, and novel mucosal delivery systems to support translationally relevant delivery science. Dr. Zierden leads a diverse team which has published work in high-impact journals and has earned several awards at the local, state, and national levels. She was the recipient of an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, the MIT Rising Stars in Chemical Engineering Award, the Maryland Academy of Sciences Outstanding Young Engineer Award, an NIH K12 Clinical Research Award, an NSF CAREER Award, and an NIH Maximizing Investigators' Research Award.