Lucy Vaughn

Lucy Vaughn is from San Francisco, CA and majored in Engineering with a minor in Chemistry. She is predominantly interested in drug development and tissue engineering which she has been able to cultivate through Wake Engineering’s undergraduate research opportunities. She shares “being able to participate in meaningful research throughout my four years at Wake allowed me to gain many technical skills and inside knowledge about the field I otherwise would not have known.” Facilitated by Dr. Henslee, Lucy was able to do research with Dr. Hall at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) for the past 3 years. Their “body-on-a-chip” research project uses tissue engineering to create a 3D lung tissue with the goal of using a microfluidic device to create an accurate representation of the human lung in vitro.

Besides research, Wake Engineering has also allowed Lucy to specialize in her interest through specific technical electives. These skills allowed her to serve as a Microbiology Intern at Cerus Corporation, a company that produces a medical device which inactivates virus and bacteria in the blood. There, Lucy’s role was to test unknown viral and bacterial concentrations to understand how quickly they grew in both ideal conditions and blood. She was also accepted as an Amgen Scholar at Columbia University, however, this opportunity was unfortunately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lucy’s favorite Wake Engineering memory was meeting her classmates, especially while having lunch together during their freshman year course. Throughout her time at Wake Forest, Lucy has served as Kappa Kappa Gamma Secretary, been a member of the Society of Women in Engineering, and studied abroad with the Institute For Study Abroad at the University of Sydney in Australia. After graduation, Lucy will be working as a Research and Development Engineering Associate at AstraZeneca.

Author: Yassmin Shaltout