Downers Grove, Illinois, United States
Theo was born and raised in Venice, Italy and moved to the United States to pursue college hockey and academia. With the Union College hockey program, Theo won the 2014 Division 1 NCAA National Championship. In the classroom, Theo has sought a rigorous biomedical engineering curriculum, supplemented with pre med courses. Furthermore, he has supplemented his classroom theory with ongoing research projects both at Union College and at other institutions. At Union College Theo has performed a computer-aided pelvic fracture plate study that has yielded poster presentations at the Orthopedic Research Society and the Biomedical Engineering Society. Research at UCLA has produced co-authored publications in Tissue Engineering journals. Theo's first research experience hails from the Marine Biological Laboratory from where a manuscript is currently in process. Theo is hopeful to pursue a M.D./Ph.D following a gap year after his undergraduate studies.
I was an undergraduate researcher in the UCLA Center of Orthopaedic Research in the Petrigliano Laboratory. Here I was involved in two projects. First, I studied the viability of three different ligamentous stem cell options for possible seeing on scaffolds for eventual ACL substitutions. Fruits from this study include a co-authorship on a publication. Second, I was involved with synthesizing a small pilot study using one type of stem cell on a different type of scaffold. The study is still ongoing.
I was an undergraduate research assistant in the Hanlon Laboratory under the mentorship of Dr. Roger Hanlon, a renowned expert in the behavioral biology of molluscs. I performed cellular neurophysiological and behavioral studies on squid to assess their perception of injury on a cellular and behavioral level. Fruits from this experience include a platform presentation at the MBL symposium, as well as two papers that have been submitted for publication in December of 2015.