>> I am truly honored to receive this incredible recognition. Thank you to the College of Engineering Leadership, doctors Ayanna Howard and Andre Palmer for the nomination. And to the Office of Research and Office of Innovation and Economic Development, for selecting me for the Early Career Innovator of the year award.

I would also like to thank my department chairs, Doctors Sameer Ghadiali, Umit Ozcan, and Sai Milroy, for their ongoing support of my professional development. My long term research goals center around developing new ocular, biomaterials and drug delivery systems. I hope that our work at Ohio State will ultimately help patients struggling with vision loss.

Of course, none of this would be possible without my exceptional students. I would like to thank all of my current and former students, especially PhD graduate doctor Pengfei Zhang. Solving these problems is a team effort. I would like to recognize my collaborators, especially Doctor Matthew Orr for his valuable clinical insight and Doctor John Lannutti for his materials expertise.

Thank you to the Ohio Lions Eye Research foundation for their support. I'm also grateful to my mentors over the years for providing my training, spurring innovation, and advocating for women in STEM. The reach for commercialization program, particularly the efforts of Doctor Mary Juhas and Carolyn Crisafulli, were instrumental to my success.

Thank you for inspiring me to pursue these endeavors as a junior faculty member. Many team members in the Office of Innovation and Economic Development have been incredibly helpful in facilitating commercialization. I would like to thank the team at Vetronix for recognizing our potential, licensing our technologies, and working on bringing new treatment options to patients.

Last, but certainly not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my family, especially my parents and my husband Matt, for always believing in me and encouraging me to pursue my dreams. Thank you.