Jennifer Blain Christen is an associate professor of electrical engineering in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, where she teaches students about circuits and oversees electrical engineering research. Along with her many ASU faculty duties, she maintains involvement in professional organizations and runs a startup venture focused on rapid, low-cost medical diagnostics.

Blain Christen’s accomplishments in teaching, research and volunteering her time to better society through engineering and technical professional groups made her a natural fit to win the Joseph C. Palais Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award for the 2022–23 academic year. Jennifer Blain Christen, an associate professor of electrical engineering, won the 2022 Joseph C. Palais Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award. Named after electrical engineering Professor Emeritus Joseph Palais, the recipient is chosen annually from among Arizona State University’s electrical engineering faculty for outstanding work in research, teaching and community service. Photo by Erika Gronek/ASU Download Full Image

“I was very shocked and honored to be selected,” she says.

The Palais Award, established in 2016 by its namesake, electrical engineering Professor Emeritus Joseph Palais, celebrates School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering faculty who demonstrate all-around excellence in research, teaching and community service.

“Jennifer is an inspiration with her microelectronics research on devices that can save lives and better the health of society,” says Stephen Phillips, the school’s director. “She is a great example of how our faculty can create a brighter future for individuals around the world.”

Improving health through electrical engineering research

Blain Christen started at ASU in 2008 as an assistant professor. She directs ASU’s BioElectrical Systems and Technology Group, which conducts research in bioelectronics development to improve human health.

The group is currently working to adapt portable point-of-care diagnostic systems to detect new diseases, such as viruses, when they are discovered. Another device the team created monitors infants within their first hours of life to improve the detection of neurological disabilities such as cerebral palsy. The goal is to use this early detection to improve medical care for infants born with these neurological conditions, giving them a better quality of life.

“Having had three very different and complex births and a cousin very close to my age with cerebral palsy, I feel gifted with opportunities to work on projects that mean so much to me,” Blain Christen says.

She also co-directs both the Research Experience for Undergraduates and Research Experience for Teachers programs in ASU’s Sensor Signal and Information Processing Center, or SenSIP. The programs give students and teachers experience in cutting-edge research in machine learning as well as sensors and signal processing, which involves the processing of data like medical images and physiological measurements.

Blain Christen also volunteers her time to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE. She is an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems and serves as a chair for groups within the IEEE: Women in Circuits and Systems, which supports career development for those early in their electrical engineering careers, especially women and minorities, and the Biomedical and Life Science Circuits and Systems Technical Committee, which encourages advancements in biomedical electronics.

Engineering a better future for humanity

Michael Kozicki, a professor of electrical engineering at ASU who nominated Blain Christen for the Palais Award, says she deserves the recognition for her contributions to electrical engineering and her caring treatment of people.

“She’s not only an accomplished researcher, a superb teacher, a leader, entrepreneur and a consummate professional who serves the community with fervor and diligence, but she also cares about people in a way that very few individuals do,” Kozicki says. “She is so generous with her time and effort, going well out of her way to help.”

Even as a child, Blain Christen wanted to help others in her career. But while public service occupations like teaching, nursing or first responders might be the first to come to mind as ways to serve society, Blain Christen was inclined toward electronics and computers. Combining her desire to help others with a passion for electronics led to her career in engineering electrical technology with a focus on improving health care.

“It was a journey to figure out how those two things could come together, but I feel like I have found that answer,” she says. “I feel very privileged to have had the opportunities that allowed me to follow my goals.”

An entrepreneurial electrical engineer

Outside of her work at ASU, Blain Christen co-founded FlexBioTech, a startup developing low-cost portable diagnostics for cancer and infectious diseases such as COVID-19 using DNA and RNA biomarkers in saliva. Blain Christen and the startup won the People’s Choice Award in the MedTech category at Washington University in St. Louis’ 2022 Equalize business pitch competition, which seeks to increase entrepreneurship among women in academia.

The goal for the diagnostic devices is to efficiently replace resource-intensive and expensive medical tests, such as polymerase chain reaction, or PCR — tests like those used to accurately diagnose COVID-19. These portable diagnostics aim to help people in communities without access to well-developed health care infrastructure.

Over the course of her career, Blain Christen’s achievements have also earned a Flinn Foundation Translational Research Seed Grants award and a Fulton Entrepreneurial Professors award.

Encouraging electrical engineering’s next generation 

In addition to Blain Christen’s awards, professional organization service and research leadership, students also enjoy learning from her. Vi Nguyen, a biomedical engineering doctoral student conducting research with Blain Christen on medical diagnostic devices, appreciates her style of teaching.

“As a mentor, Dr. Blain Christen is easygoing and listens to every student’s ideas and concerns,” Nguyen says. “She is kind, humble, caring and truly the epitome of a good professor.”

Blain Christen also enjoys mentoring and teaching students about opportunities available to them, encouraging them to do what they believe is impossible.

“One of my best moments as an educator was seeing a comment from a young Black woman stating that she had always thought that she would have to choose between a PhD and becoming a mother,” Blain Christen says. “She said that after seeing me bring my kids along to the social events for the summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates program and how I was able to lead a research team, she no longer felt that she had to choose.”

Arizona State University Professor Erika Tatiana Camacho has been named the recipient of the 2023 M. Gweneth Humphreys Award by the Association for Women in Mathematics.

Camacho will be recognized for her impactful and multidimensional mentoring activities that have enabled the success of generations of talented scientists and mathematicians — regardless of race, ethnicity, socio-economic class, family educational history or gender. Erika Tatiana Camacho has been named the recipient of the 2023 M. Gweneth Humphreys Award. Download Full Image

Camacho is a full professor in the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences and a Fulbright Research Scholar at the Institut de la Vision-Sorbonne Université, where she is researching photoreceptor degeneration.

In July, she ended a three-year rotation at the National Science Foundation as co-lead of the HSI Program and program officer of ADVANCE and Racial Equity in STEM Education, where she created and contributed to impactful initiatives dedicated to equity, diversity and inclusion. She has a PhD in applied mathematics from Cornell University and is an accomplished researcher in the field of mathematical biology.

She feels honored and validated for the intentional mentoring she has received and given over the years.

“I would like to thank the mentors who have influenced my career path and the hundreds of students and mentees that I have had over the years who have allowed me to be part of their journey,” Camacho said. “It has been a true pleasure to get to know my mentees, affect their lives and see them rise to become great scientists. In the process of mentoring, I have transformed the lives of many of them, but they all have also greatly transformed my life as I have learned so much from them.”

Camacho has a long history of effective mentorship. She co-directed two undergraduate summer research programs: from 2005 to 2007, the Applied Mathematical Sciences Summer Institute, which she also co-founded, and from 2011 to 2013, the Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Institute.

Her efforts with both institutes contributed to over 80 alumni earning their doctorates, the majority from underrepresented groups. She has refereed publications with 15 undergraduate co-authors, and spends countless hours mentoring students and faculty one-on-one. Her reach does not end at the university level, as she also finds time to speak to middle school and high school students about their education.

She has also facilitated changes to the mathematical profession to promote inclusion. As a member of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Diversity Committee, she co-founded the Workshop Celebrating Diversity that has been held at the society's annual conference each year since 2008. She has also served as a member of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science Math Task Force and board of directors, as well as the Applied Mathematical Sciences council and the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis advisory board. Her efforts have led to significant grant support for students, women, early career faculty and mentees to further their mathematical aspirations.

“We are incredibly proud of Dr. Camacho for being selected as a recipient of the M. Gweneth Humphreys Award,” said Kenro Kusumi, dean of natural sciences in The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “This well-deserved award will enable Dr. Camacho to continue inspiring future generations of talented scientists from all backgrounds to transform the mathematical sciences."

For Camacho, mentoring is personal. Although a benefactor, she feels she did not have good mentoring at many steps along her career path.

“There have been so many times that I was ready to walk away, and I would have done it if it wasn’t for the very few mentors and friends that encouraged me to stay," Camacho said. "I went through a prolonged period where a supposed key mentor selfishly mentored me in ways that would promote him at the expense of my success and advancement. It was over these painful years that I realized the importance of selfless mentoring and that not all mentors do this. When I started to mentor, it was because I wanted to be the mentor at critical stages of an individual’s academic path where I, myself, didn’t have a good mentor and felt lost and powerless.

“Mentoring is invisible work that often goes unnoticed. Building the scientific capacity to advance science requires developing the human capital and workforce to carry the scientific enterprise as much as the intellectual aspect. Many times, we forget the need to develop scientists to move forward theories, and instead we focus only on the science innovation part. We need a substantial number of scientists ready to undertake complex problems. Most importantly, we need to have all the different perspectives and experiences at the table to be able to tackle complex problems from every angle and arrive at optimal solutions.”

The award is named for M. Gweneth Humphreys (1911–2006), who earned her master’s degree from Smith College and her PhD at age 23 from the University of Chicago in 1935. She taught mathematics to women for her entire career, at Mount St. Scholastica College, Sophie Newcomb College, and finally for over 30 years at Randolph-Macon Woman's College. This award, funded by contributions from her former students and colleagues at Randolph-Macon Woman's College, recognizes her commitment to and her profound influence on undergraduate students of mathematics.

Camacho will be honored by the Association for Women in Mathematics at the Joint Mathematical Meetings, scheduled for Jan. 4–7, 2023, in Boston.

“I really thank the AWM for recognizing the important work of individuals that work tirelessly and selflessly to mentor,” Camacho said. “Only through efforts that recognize excellent mentoring are we going to make mentoring and the creation of scientists a key aspect of advancing science.”

Leading American chemist David A. Tirrell will be the featured School of Molecular Sciences’ Eyring Lecture Series speaker Nov. 3–4 at Arizona State University's Tempe campus.

The general lecture on Nov. 3, titled “Genetic Engineering of Macromolecular and Cellular Materials,” will be presented at 6 p.m. in the Marston Theater in ISTB4, and will also be available via Zoom. An outdoor reception on the ISTB4 patio will follow from 5 to 5:40 p.m. David A. Tirrell is a leading American chemist and the Ross McCollum-William H. Corcoran Professor and professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology. Download Full Image

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences with many international awards, Tirrell is the Ross McCollum-William H. Corcoran Professor and professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology.

Tirrell was educated at MIT and at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He joined the Department of Chemistry at Carnegie‐Mellon University in 1978, returned to Amherst in 1984 and served as director of the Materials Research Laboratory at UMass before moving to Pasadena, California, in 1998. At Caltech, he has served as chairman of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (1999–2009), director of the Beckman Institute (2011–2018) and provost (2017–present).

Tirrell’s research interests lie in macromolecular chemistry and in the use of non‐canonical amino acids to engineer and probe protein behavior. His contributions to these fields have been recognized by his election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and all three branches (sciences, engineering and medicine) of the U.S. National Academies.

The Eyring Lectures are part of an interdisciplinary distinguished lecture series dedicated to stimulating discussion by renowned scientists who are at the cutting edge of their respective fields. Each series consists of a leadoff presentation to help communicate the excitement and the challenge of science to the university and community. Past lecturers have included Nobel laureates Ahmed Zewail, Jean-Marie Lehn, Harry Gray, Richard Smalley, Yuan T. Lee, Richard Schrock, John Goodenough, Mario Capecchi and, most recently awarded, Carolyn Bertozzi.

The technical lecture “Selective Proteomic Analysis of Cellular Sub-Populations in Complex Biological Systems” will take place at 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 4 in room 166 of the Physical Sciences Center F-Wing. It will also be available via Zoom.

This lecture will describe the use of non‐canonical amino acids (ncAAs) as selective probes of protein synthesis in complex biological systems. Pulse‐labeling with ncAA probes provides time‐resolution, while controlled expression of mutant aminoacyl‐tRNA synthetases allows the investigator to restrict analysis to cell types or cell states of interest. The methods are applicable to studies of microbial systems, mammalian cell culture and a variety of animal models.The scope and limitations of the approach, and some recent results, will be discussed.

The Eyring Lecture Series is named in honor of the late Leroy Eyring, an ASU Regents Professor of chemistry and former department chair, whose instructional and research accomplishments and professional leadership at ASU helped to bring the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry into international prominence. The Eyring Materials Center and the Navrotsky Eyring Center for Materials of the Universe at ASU are named in his honor.

The College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University continues on its mission to bring people together to improve the health of the community with its second annual Translational Science Conference.

The conference, taking place Oct. 27–28, brings people from multiple disciplines to explore innovative approaches in translational research and collaboration. ASU's College of Health Solutions is hosting its second annual Translational Science Conference Oct. 27–28. Download Full Image

This year’s conference, happening virtually on Thursday, Oct. 27, and virtually and in-person on Friday, Oct. 28, examines actionable strategies for enhancing team effectiveness, adaptability and longevity.

Deborah Williams is the director of affinity networks and translational teams in addition to being a clinical assistant professor at the College of Health Solutions. Williams said the conference brings together leading scientists in the field to provide insight into new and enhanced translational research approaches.

“The problems facing our world are so complex and multidimensional that we need to expand our thinking in order to address them,” Williams said. “That means working together in diverse, transdisciplinary teams and using more systems-oriented approaches.

“This conference provides an opportunity to explore new methods, research and perspectives that can promote innovation and hopefully produce results that directly benefit human health.”

Conference to feature leading voices in translational science

“We have a great panel of speakers addressing a range of pertinent issues that impact much of the work we do daily from projects, programs, research and funding,” Williams said.

Key topics include dealing with barriers that prohibit productivity, better ways to lasting, co-created coalitions and future directions.

Featured speakers for this year’s conference are:

• David Chambers, deputy director for implementation science, National Cancer Institute.
• Teresa Aseret-Manygoats, bureau chief, chronic disease and health promotion, Arizona Department of Health Services.
• Ann Verhey-Henke, strategic director, Center for Socially Engaged Design, University of Michigan.
• Michael Welsh, interim executive director, Phoenix VA Health Care System.
• Cady Berkel and Corrie Whisner, co-directors of the Maternal Child Health Translational Team, ASU College of Health Solutions.

Chambers, Thursday's keynote speaker, will offer a separate session on Friday to allow participants an opportunity to ask questions in an informal session.

Berkel and Whisner will present what should be an impactful session on knowledge sharing among the maternal child care workforce on Thursday afternoon.

In addition to the speakers, the conference includes interactive sessions and workshops. The Friday, Oct. 28, workshops and sessions will be both in person and virtual.

2022 Translational Science Conference

Designing Adaptable Teams for Longevity and Success

Virtual session: 9 a.m.–3:45 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 27

Virtual and in-person sessions: 9 a.m.–3 p.m., Friday, Oct. 28. In-person sessions take place at the ASU Downtown Phoenix campus in the Health North building, 550 N. 3rd St., Phoenix.

For more information and to register, visit https://chs.asu.edu/antt.