“It was a hypothesis. I was the experiment, and the hypothesis was proven true.” 

Can an inner-city student who grew up below the poverty line earn a Ph.D. and make a career in research? In theory, yes.  

The barriers are many. But literature suggests that early exposure to STEM and research opportunities can increase the odds for students in need.  

For Kendreze Holland, the idea of making it to college and earning an advanced degree was a hypothesis. Sure, theoretically it could be done — but in his own home, not everyone had even made it past high school.  

Often, the first question on the way to scientific discovery is: What if? What if a student like Holland received the right help at the right time? What if he was guided along the way by mentors who were leaders in their fields? What if he was given the opportunity to develop professional skills and make valuable connections? 

Holland asked himself: What if he could be the one to prove the hypothesis true? 

Introduction 

Holland grew up in northwest Atlanta, one of seven children raised by a single mother. Being one of so many children, most would struggle to stand out. But Holland always sought to be different.  

“My perpetual intention was to be less of a burden to my mother,” he said. “Since my mother’s education limited her abilities to help with my schoolwork, I went above the call of duty to stand out in academics.” 

His mother’s education was cut short in ninth grade so she could raise her first child, Holland’s older sister, and no one in his family had gone to college. In his mind, he had three career paths to choose from: football, hip hop, or retail.  

“Standing at a solid 5 foot 8, the first would have been difficult,” he joked. “And the latter two were not my calling.” 

Just like his mother, the course of his life changed in his ninth-grade year. For Holland, it began an academic journey he never expected.  

In 2012, he was attending B.E.S.T. Academy, an all-boys public school for grades six through 12 focused on business and STEM. Biology class was just another hour waiting to pass for the 15-year-old Holland, until the day two guest speakers from Georgia Tech walked into the room with “some weird apparatuses and mechanical chopsticks.” 

The two guests used the equipment — gel electrophoresis systems and pipettes — to show the boys what research can look like in real life. 

“This experience sparked within me a drive for science, and it was the first time I realized that I wanted to, and could, attain an advanced scientific degree,” Holland said.  

The two speakers were Manu Platt, a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and Jerald Dumas, a postdoctoral researcher. Platt and Dumas were there to recruit students for a new program called Project ENGAGES within the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB).  

The program was co-founded by Platt and the late Robert M. Nerem, IBB’s founding executive director, to give students like Holland an opportunity to participate in real research projects that would hopefully plant a seed in the next generation of scientists.  

Students come from one of eight partner schools in Atlanta. Once accepted, they are connected to a Georgia Tech graduate student who mentors them and supervises their work, and they get paid to work in their assigned lab for one year.  

Project ENGAGES does more than expose students to STEM concepts and ideas. It equips them with the skills and knowledge to carry out their own independent research projects. They also have opportunities to establish connections with university faculty and industry representatives who can provide career guidance and support. 

Methods 

Though Holland didn’t meet the program’s age requirement in 2012, he applied again the next year and was accepted. During his junior and senior years of high school, he worked in Platt’s lab, where he aided with projects involving proteins, cell cultures, and antibodies.  

“Over the course of those two years, the growth I saw scientifically, professionally, and in maturity, all corroborated my belief that Kendreze was going far, and able to push past whatever goals and obstacles he comes up against,” said Platt, now the director of the Center for Biomedical Engineering Technology Acceleration housed within the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.  

Holland's experience sparked a love for science and a career-long connection with Georgia Tech. After high school, he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in chemistry from Georgia State University. As an undergraduate, he stayed connected with Tech and with IBB as a Petit Scholar, a yearlong mentorship program and research experience for top students around Atlanta. 

“I really wanted to stay close to home, and I felt like everything was in my backyard,” he said. “There are many people who come here from other places to Tech because of the great science that is going on. There’s something special about Atlanta, and I’m just getting the best of what I can from it.” 

He credits his time in Project ENGAGES with giving him the confidence and resilience to continue toward his goals. Like many others in the program, he was a first-generation college student with little to no guidance for his academic career. The holistic approach of Project ENGAGES provided professional development opportunities and standardized test preparation to ready him for life in college and beyond. 

“I knew I wanted to go to grad school, but I didn’t know I was going to do all these things,” he said. “Having that one goal sprouted a lot of side quests that just grew into something bigger.” 

After graduating from Georgia State in 2020, Holland was accepted into Georgia Tech’s Bioengineering Graduate Program as a doctoral student. In December 2025, he became the first Project ENGAGES alumnus to successfully defend his dissertation, and he is expected to graduate this spring. 

Lakeita Servance, assistant director of Outreach Initiatives at IBB, was the program manager for Project ENGAGES when Holland was accepted and cheered him on more than 10 years later as he presented his doctoral research. 

“As I sat in that room while he was defending his dissertation and sharing his research with all of us, I still reflected on that boy I saw at 16 years old,” she said. “It was this full circle moment to see him make it all the way back here. The investment we made over a decade ago has paid off in such a large way.” 

Results 

In addition to being the first in his family to go to college and earn an advanced degree, Holland received financial support from the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program; was awarded multiple prestigious fellowships, including FORD, GEM, and Herbert P. Haley; landed an internship with 3M Corporate Research Materials Laboratory; and served as a mentor in the Nakatani Research and International Experience for Students. He has published papers, led panel discussions, applied for patents, and presented his research at national conferences.   

“All that stemmed from Project ENGAGES,” he said. “And more importantly, I applied to be a mentor for the ENGAGES program.” 

Holland said some of his most meaningful experiences have come from being able to give back. He has served as a mentor, both formally and informally, to more than half a dozen students, some who come from backgrounds much like his own. 

“I wanted to give back to the program because it poured so much into me. They were able to get me all the way to the Ph.D. level, so I knew that I could use my grind to help other students.” 

Conclusion 

Having proved the hypothesis true, Holland is turning his focus to the future, considering his options in academia and corporate research while he continues to work as a postdoc at Georgia Tech.  

His research in John Blazeck’s lab focuses on cellular engineering using CRISPR gene editing technology to regulate gene profiles, meaning he and other researchers can turn certain genes up and others down to affect the way cells respond. Though he is currently working with yeast cells, he hopes that his research will translate into mammalian cells that could have more clinical applications.  

“In terms of diseases and disorders, you can use it to tune genes to help someone experiencing cancer by helping immune cells or stopping cancer cells from dividing rapidly,” he said. “You can also help other cells to survive longer, and longer cell viability means potentially a patient can survive longer.” 

What began as a presentation in a high school science class has led Holland to a future he never expected. Tequila Harris, professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and co-director of Project ENGAGES, said his story shows others that they can do the same.  

“I believe his achievements will inspire and motivate generations of students to pursue dreams that they may not have known they had. Kendreze Holland has fundamentally shown others that there are multiple pathways to engage in STEM and that opportunities and access to advanced degrees can be attained by those willing to do the work.” 

Holland's story is symbolic of the ultimate goal for Project ENGAGES: to change the lives of talented young people who may never have had the opportunity to succeed.  

“That’s why I was so adamant about getting my Ph.D.,” he said, “to show that one could potentially overcome what they were going through to do something extraordinary.” 

Project ENGAGES is possible thanks to philanthropic support from our generous community: Donate here.

Since it began in 2019, Georgia Tech and Emory University’s Computational Neural-Engineering Training Program has funded and trained doctoral students at the intersection of neuroscience, engineering, computation, and clinical experience.  

“We saw that there was a new kind of neuroscience that was happening, to both understand the mysteries of the brain and nervous system and to treat related diseases and disorders,” says Garrett Stanley, program co-director, professor, and McCamish Foundation Distinguished Chair in the Walter H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME). “The program was created to fill this gap in training, and to provide a community for like-minded scientists and engineers across these disciplines.” 

Combined with support from Georgia Tech and Emory, that community is set to grow with recently renewed and increased funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

“We’re excited to expand the number of students funded and continue to grow our programs,” says Lena Ting, program co-director, professor, and McCamish Foundation Distinguished Chair in BME. “With this funding, we’ll continue to attract the best and brightest students.” 

Managed by the BioEngineering Graduate Association (BGA), the event brought keynote speakers who are some of the top researchers in their fields. Also, students put their work on display in a poster session throughout the atrium of the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, headquarters for BioE, or they gave live presentations of their research in front of a packed audience in the Suddath Room. And the day always culminated with an awards ceremony followed by fun and games, inside or outside, depending on the weather.

This year, thanks to a worldwide pandemic forcing social distancing practices (which means a mostly closed campus), the BGA employed a few new and necessary tricks to keep the tradition alive. The seventh annual BioE Day became the first virtual BioE Day, which basically included everything except for the poster session and frisbee on the quad. Ultimately, the event (May 5) was a welcome taste of normalcy for a sprawling program that has built a reputation as one of the top ranked of its kind in the nation.

“Throughout the year there are seminars and other events held by BioE to help create community, but none of these are ever as special as BioE Day,” said BGA President Bailey Hannon, a graduate researcher in the lab of Ross Ethier, professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

“Virtual BioE Day was a way to still form a sense of community and enthusiasm that is desperately missed these past few months,” added Hannon, who was named winner of this year’s Christopher Ruffin Leadership Award. “I think now more than ever, BioE Day was super important, because when you’re sitting at home and not allowed to continue your research, it can be difficult to stay motivated and excited.”

More than 170 people took part in the event, sitting in their living rooms or home offices or wherever they’re doing their work these days, including Laurence Jacobs, associate dean in the College of Engineering, who offered a few words to the virtually gathered crowd. The schedule was dominated, as usual, by talks about science. They were delivered by current BioE Award winners. Leading off was ShuichiTakayama, professor in the Coulter Department (Outstanding Advisor), who offered his “Journey to Bioengineering.” Next up was Monica McNerney, who graduated from the BioE program last year and was the winner of the Outstanding Thesis Award. Her presentation was entitled “Biosensors for Field Deployable Diagnostics.”

Following the Rapid Fire Thesis competition, BioE alumnus Stephen Scwhaner talked about the pitfalls and solutions to finding a job. Musa Mahmood (Outstanding Paper) delivered a presentation called “Universal Brain-machine Interfaces Enabled by Flexible Scalp Electronics and Deep-learning,” followed by Camila Camargo (Outstanding Abstract) and her talk entitled “Adhesion Analysis to Interrogate Extravasation Capacity of CD8 T Cells for Adoptive Cell Therapy.”

Elio Challita (who shared Outstanding Abstract honors with Camargo) presented research with the enthralling title, “Insect Pee: How Sharpshooters Excrete Ultrafast Fluid Droplets.” Another graduate of the BioE program, Ivana Parker, closed the day’s talks with her presentation, “A Bioengineering Journey: Navigating Challenges and Opportunities.”

While all of this was going on, a group of faculty judges from the Coulter Department – Felipe Quiroz, Aniruddh Sarkar, Ahmet Coskun – made their selections for the Rapid Fire Thesis student awards: April Miguez, first place, $150 (principal investigator is Mark Styczynski, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering); Jeffrey Gau, second, $100 (P.I. is Simon Sponberg, School of Physics); Dan Zhang third, $100 (P.I. is Melissa Kemp, Coulter Department); Sri Krishna Sivakumar, fan favorite, $75 (P.I. is Prasad Dasi, Coulter Department).

In addition to Camargo (P.I. is Susan Thomas, School of Mechanical Engineering) and Challita (P.I. is Saad Bhamla, School of Chemical and Biolmolecular Engineering), Mighten Yip, from the lab of Craig Forest (Mechanical Engineering) was recognized with an award for Outstanding Abstract ($100).

As the Ruffin Award winner, Hannon took home one of the most coveted prizes among BioE students, and it’s a reflection of her years of leadership within the program, during which she focused on a healthy work-life balance, “because when you are happier and more relaxed overall, retrying that failed experiment for the 102^nd time seems a lot less daunting.”

She added, “Winning the Ruffin Award was amazing because each year I’d see the winner of this award and think to myself, ‘of course, that was so well deserved, they did so much for the program.’ And now that’s me! I’m incredibly thankful and in shock. It’s also bittersweet because it really means that I’m leaving the BioE program and all of the people that I’ll miss so much.”

Though it was a shorter event and though the participants were separated, sometimes by many miles, the virtual edition of BioE Day was a big hit, according to Zhang, who is BGA vice president. “A lot of credit goes to our BioE Day chairs, Hannah Viola and Mighten Yip, who were instrumental in coordinating many of the logistics,” he said. “BioE Day at its heart has always been driven by students, and they've really embodied a spirit of leadership and service in planning this event.”

Zhang also called out Petit Institute staffers Colly Mitchell and Randy Johnson, “for all their help in taking care of technical considerations for a virtual event, and moderating the actual flow of events. And as always, Program Administrator Laura Paige is a key force behind anything and everything BioE-related.”

Mulero-Russe, whose home school at Georgia Tech is the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is one of only 40 scholars in the year-long program this go-round. The students kicked off their year as fellows of the Yale Ciencia Academy for Career Development this week (Feb. 14-18) by attending the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

It’s exactly the kind of networking opportunity Mulero-Russe was hoping for when she applied for the highly competitive program.

“I still feel new to everything, and I’m eager to learn how to network with other people in similar areas of research,” she said. “I expect to put these skills into play in the four years I have ahead of me as a Ph.D. student.”

The Yale Ciencia Academy was developed in 2016 by Ciencia Puerto Rico, a non-profit organization comprised of scientists, students, citizens, and professionals committed to the advancement of science in Puerto Rico and with promoting science communication, education, and careers.

The career development program targets grad students studying biomedical and behavioral sciences in Puerto Rico and the U.S., giving them an opportunity to participate in workshops, conversations with scientists, mentoring, networking and another thing that really resonated strongly for Mulero-Russe, science outreach.

Outside of research, one of her passions is sharing her knowledge of science with the community. Her long-term goals include combining her desire to teach and inspire others with research and engineering.

“I envision becoming a professor, teaching and spreading knowledge and confidence to other students, helping them see that they’re capable of achieving their goals in life,” said Mulero-Russe, who earned her Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM) in 2018.

She was able to leverage her great interest in the use of biomaterials in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine to become part of the Georgia Tech biomaterials training grant. Last semester she worked in the lab of Petit Institute researcher Nick Willett.

Currently, she’s doing her research in the lab of Petit Institute Executive Director Andrés J. García, who is also a native of Puerto Rico, the unincorporated U.S. island territory that was hammered by Hurricane Maria in September 2017, when Mulera-Russe was heading into the home stretch of her undergraduate studies. She said her family was lucky to escape major damage, but they didn’t have power or water for several months.

“It was definitely a rough moment for all of us, but we’re resilient. We have a strong spirit in Puerto Rico – our group mentality is to think and work as a community,” said Mulera-Russe, who would ultimately like to be a professor back home. “My goal is to return to Puerto Rico, to give back to the community what they gave me. I’d really like to be a model for future Puerto Rican students.”

Launched in 2005 by friends and colleagues of Bob Nerem, founding director of the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the travel award typically supports travel costs for one graduate student or post-doctoral trainee traveling outside of the U.S. for research. But this year, for the first time, two winners are sharing the award.

Sweeney-Jones, from the lab of Petit Institute researcher Julia Kubanek, will use her portion for underwater research with the University of the South Pacific in Fiji. Meanwhile Hunckler, who works in the Petit Institute lab of Andrés J. García, is using his to visit the University of Toronto, where he’ll work alongside stem cell biologists on his ongoing goal to find a treatment Type 1 diabetes, a disease he and his brother have been battling for years.

“When I was in third grade, my younger brother was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and I vowed that I would help him, in some way, alleviate the daily struggles he faced,” recalls Hunckler, who was diagnosed six years later, during his first week of high school. “I finally was able to appreciate firsthand the burden that diabetes had on my brother’s life.”

The experience reinvigorated his interest in alleviating the consequence of the disease, continuing through his undergraduate studies at the University of Notre Dame and now at Georgia Tech, where he is a third-year BioEngineering PhD student working in the García lab to develop game-changing solutions for treating diabetes.

As lead engineer of the collaboration with the Toronto team, Hunckler hopes to integrate the advanced biomaterial development of the García lab with the stem cell biology techniques of the Nostro lab.

“I find it critically valuable that I understand the stem cell work being done by the Nostro lab, and it will be immensely valuable for the Nostro lab to understand the biomaterials techniques that we are implementing,” says Hunckler. “So, this travel grant will allow me to learn their research, teach our research, and facilitate a fruitful collaboration for the remainder of my PhD and beyond.”

Almost 8,000 miles away in another hemisphere, Sweeney-Jones will be back in somewhat familiar waters. She visited Fiji last year as part of a study abroad program, and had a chance to do some exploring.

“I’ve actually had a chance to dive twice in Fiji, but this will be an amazing opportunity to go back and actually do some field research,” says Sweeney-Jones, a PhD student in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry who will work in Fiji with the lab of University of the South Pacific researcher Kate Soapi.

The Kubanek lab looks at how marine organisms use chemical cues for defense, mating, habitat selection, and food tracking. Sweeney-Jones is interested in studying natural products derived from marine organisms that have potential pharmacological activity.

While in Fiji this summer, “I want to identify compounds that are active against malaria and infectious worms,” she says. “And see what ecological roles these compounds have in their natural environment.”

Previous Nerem Travel Awards have sent trainees from Georgia Tech across the planet, to some of the world’s top research universities and institutions, including the Karolinska Institute (Sweden), the RIKEN Brain Science Institute (Japan), the National University of Singapore, the University of Twente (The Netherlands), Queensland University of Technology (Australia), and the Max Planck Institute (Germany), among others.

From the program’s beginning, Nerem has always stressed the importance of getting out of familiar surroundings to experience research.

“This award has never been about sending a student to a conference,” Nerem says. “This is about going to another laboratory in another place and sharing your research while learning research techniques from other experts.”

BioE Day was designed specifically to unify the graduate program’s students and faculty, who come from many different home schools and are immersed in a wide range of research topics. The event incorporates research, competitions, awards, fellowship, games, and a keynote address by Bob Nerem, founding director of the Petit Institute.

“I’m thrilled the students recommended Bob,” said Andrés García, BioE faculty advisor. “He’s my friend and mentor. He’s ‘Uncle Bob.’”

Nerem delivered his address, entitled, “Bioengineering: Building a New Discipline, a Personal Journey.” He talked about living in Norway as a child and about his career. Nerem began in aeronautical engineering and gravitated toward bioengineering after NASA recruited him to help the organization better understand how launch and re-entry from orbit affects the human body. Since then, he’s been a leading researcher in bioengineering for more than 40 years, focusing primarily on tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you may end up somewhere else,” Nerem said, offering a suitable theme for his career, borrowed from the wisdom of Yogi Berra.

Following Nerem’s address and lunch, the students engaged in a poster competition and a rapid-fire presentation competition, which was won by Joshua Hooks and Tom Bongiorno, respectively.

Winners of the 2016 BioE Outstanding Paper award (grad student Jordan Ciciliano) and Outstanding Advisor award (Krishnendu Roy, professor in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering) made research presentations. 

Hooks and Bongiorno were then given their awards, and Bongiorno was named winner of the Chris Ruffin Student Leadership Award, which recognizes exemplary leadership and community involvement.

BioE Day was supposed to end with a cookout and games in courtyard, but rain pushed the fun inside, where a couple of cornhole games ensued, but not before the bean bags were co-opted by several members of the staff, faculty and student body, who demonstrated heretofore unseen juggling skills and may have laid the groundwork for a new competition at the next BioE Day.

CONTACT:

Jerry Grillo
Communications Officer II
Parker H. Petit Institute for
Bioengineering and Bioscience