Erica Schwarz, an undergraduate student in the ICM lab of Natalia Trayanova, Murray B. Sachs Professor of Biomedical Engineering, has been granted a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. The highly competitive Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees. Erica will receive a three-year annual stipend along with a cost of education allowance for tuition and fees and the freedom to conduct her own research.

Erica is a double major in biomedical engineering and computer science who conducts research at the Institute of Computational Medicine and the Applied Physics Laboratory. Also, Erica is a design team leader through the Center of Bioengineering Innovation and Design and has done research at the University of Arizona and the National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on how computational tools can be used to create new tools in healthcare such as modeling and simulating electrophysiology in the heart and using machine learning to detect breast cancer in raw frequency ultrasound.