Ian Marozas: Outstanding advisor drew me to CU Boulder

Hometown: Rochester, NY
Advisor:Kristi Anseth

My path to engineering

I grew up in Rochester, New York, where I attended the University of Rochester for biomedical engineering. My mother is a physician and my father an engineer, so biomedical engineering allowed me to combine the interests that my parents instilled in me. In my Transport Phenomena class, I researched and created a presentation on the field of drug delivery. This project really piqued my interest in researching targeted drug delivery strategies, so I joined the lab of Professor Danielle Benoit, who specializes in therapeutic biomaterials. In Dr. Benoit’s lab I worked on a polymer-based drug delivery platform to help treat osteoporosis.

I really enjoyed the research project that I worked on at my undergraduate institution, and it helped me decide that I wanted to become a research scientist. My undergraduate research advisor encouraged me to apply to graduate school and helped me a lot with the process. I am currently in the department of Chemical and Biological Engineering working with Professor Kristi Anseth on a project investigating how the mechanical properties of materials can influence the behavior of cells.

Why CU Boulder?

I mostly decided to go to CU because I wanted to work with my advisor, Kristi Anseth. I had read many of her publications as an undergraduate and I was excited about the research projects I could work on in her lab.

Like many other people who chose to attend CU Boulder, the outdoor activities that one can do in the mountains was also a big factor in my decision to go to CU!

CU is a great place for graduate school. The campus is beautiful, the research facilities are great, the people are nice, the weather is amazing. I have a hard time thinking about what I don’t love about CU.