Kara Peak

A picture of Lake Superior taken as the sun rises. The frozen shoreline can be seen in the foreground. The sky is blue with clouds, which partially obscure the sun.

A view of downtown Duluth taken from Lake Superior. Several brick buildings can be seen, with the prominent historic Old Central High School clock tower rising above them in the center of the image. The sky is blue with clouds. Snow can be seen on the ground.

A flyer advertising Kara’s seminar to the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. At the top, the flyer reads “ECE Seminar: Engineering the Lifeline: Biomechanical Drivers of Umbilical Cord Vascular Maldevelopment” in large maroon letters. Underneath, “Dr. Kara Peak” and “University of Minnesota Postdoc” are listed to the left of a headshot of Kara. The seminar time and location are listed in maroon below. Longer paragraphs are shown for the abstract and bio. At the bottom and within the maroon block, the University of Minnesota Duluth logo is shown with “Swenson College of Science and Engineering” to the right and “Electrical and Computer Engineering” below that in white font. The contact information for the department is listed at the very bottom.

Views from my time along the North Shore last week ❄️🌊 I’m grateful for the opportunity to have presented a seminar in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Minnesota Duluth

A baby born by Cesarian section in 2017 in Joinville, Santa Catarina, Brazil.

A study of 3,537 Brazilian children finds that those born via planned Cesarian section before labor have 6.6% lower cortisol levels at age 4–7 than other children, likely because they bypassed the mechanical forces and hormones of labor. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/Cq8q50XIxL6

I stand (at a lectern) corrected

Attendees of the Minnesota Placenta Research Community Symposium smile for a group photo.

Kara stands at a wooden podium presenting her flash talk.

Overview image of attendees seated around tables and watching while Kara presents her flash talk.

A portion of the schedule for the symposium. At the top it reads “Minnesota Placenta Research Community Symposium 2025” followed by the date and location of “November 13, 2025” at “Historic Mayowood.” The group’s logo, a black and white outline of the state of Minnesota adapted to appear as a placenta with a fetus to the right and the letters “MPRC” underneath, is in the top right hand corner. The smaller text shows the beginning of the day’s agenda “8:30am - Continental Breakfast (3rd Floor Ballroom)” followed by “9:00am - Opening remarks by Drs. Micah Gearhart and Sarah Wernimont” followed by “9:15am - Flash Talks Round 1” and underneath is the bullet point “9:15am - Umbilical vascular development in gestational diabetes - Dr. Kara Peak, University of Minnesota.”

About a month late on sharing, but I had a great time kicking off the flash talks at the 2nd annual Minnesota Placenta Research Community Symposium! Thanks to our placenta colleagues at Mayo for hosting, especially @enninga.bsky.social and @sgplacenta.bsky.social for organizing an awesome event.

Fully-funded 4-year PhD studentships for home or overseas students, applications open till 4 November. 🔗 Please like and share to spread the word! www.trophoblast.cam.ac.uk/phd-students...

Take a look at projects for 2025/26 www.trophoblast.cam.ac.uk/opportunitie...

#PhD, #PhDPosition

Excited to share the latest work from our lab investigating human placental pericytes!

The regulation of placental pericyte function through transforming growth factor β-1 signalling - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - The regulation of placental pericyte function through transforming growth factor β-1 signalling

Checkout our new work demonstrating how TGFb1 impacts placental pericyte secretion of proangiogenic and proinflammatory factors and inhibits pericyte phagocytosis. Out today in Scientific Reports. @drcnatale.bsky.social
#pericytes #placenta
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Kara stands smiling in front of her research poster. She wears a multicolored floral dress with a white BMES conference name tag on a blue lanyard around her neck.

A view from Torrey Pines Natural Reserve looking from above on some ocean-side cliffs down towards the ocean below.

Kara poses next to a banner at the UT Dallas booth. The banner shows the Department of Bioengineering’s research areas in a column of 6 topics with associated images. Starting from the top and moving downwards, the banner reads in white text “Bioimaging, Biomaterials, Biomechanics, Biosensors, Neural Engineering, Systems Biology.” Kara uses her hands to frame the Biomechanics section. A close up of an immunofluorescent image of an early embryonic chick lung airway shows cell nuclei (blue), epithelial cells (red), and proliferating cells (green).

A view from the entrance of the San Diego convention center of a rainbow arching over Petco Park stadium. Palm trees line the street. A skyscraper is on the left-hand side of the photo.

#BMES2025

🥼presented my work & plans for my future lab
🌅 enjoyed beautiful San Diego
🔬spotted my IF image representing the biomechanics section of my doctoral alma mater

not pictured: awesome work in women’s health & reproductive science + many great conversations with fellow researchers

BMES Meet the Faculty Candidate Forum Sat, Oct 11 12 - 2:30 PM Exhibition Hall F, G & H Joshua François (Harvard): Poster I6 Kara Peak (UMN): Poster I9 Taj Yeruva (UMD): Poster K15

Headed to BMES? Don't miss our stellar 2025 BME UNITE Fellows at the Meet The Faculty Candidate Forum! Visit Drs. @jfrancois-eng.bsky.social, Kara Peak, and Taj Yeruva at their posters on Saturday, Oct 11, from 12-2:30 PM in Exhibit Hall F, G & H.

#BMES2025 #BMES #biomedicalengineering

A flyer with a dark grey background features information on Kara’s upcoming presentations at the BMES Annual Meeting in white text. The white BMES logo is in the top left corner and underneath is a headshot of Kara in front of a yellow circle. To the right, the text reads “Finite element model predicts decreased umbilical coiling due to vessel thickening in gestational diabetes.” A calendar clipart is followed by the time and date of “10-11am, 2:45-3:45pm Thursday, Oct. 9.” Finally, a location pin clipart is followed by the conference location at “Poster Z34, Exhibit Hall F, G & H.” Underneath is more text with information about Kara’s “Meet the Faculty” poster. The “Peak Lab: Multi-scale Mechanisms of Pregnancy & Development” poster is from “12:00-2:30pm Saturday, Oct. 11” at “Poster I9, Exhibit Hall F, G & H.” The University of Minnesota’s logo featuring the golden yellow “M” and phrase “driven to discover” is in the bottom right corner.

🌴San Diego, here I come! I’ll be presenting twice at #BMES2025 later this week.
☀️ Thursday: finite element model to understand abnormal umbilical coiling
☀️ Saturday: Meet the Faculty - hear about projects I have planned for my future independent lab
⬇️ More info in the flyer below ⬇️

I’m excited to be presenting my work and future research plans next week! 🔗 Link below to register to attend ⬇️

Kara stands in front of a metal statue of Goldy the Gopher and the University of Minnesota’s red stone “M” logo. Kara is holding a certificate in front of herself and smiling.

A close up image of the certificate. A logo for the Graduate School Office of Postdoctoral Initiatives is in the top left. The main text reads “The University of Minnesota Graduate School, Office of Postdoctoral Initiatives proudly presents Dr. Kara Peak Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Science & Engineering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in our Academic Community Award” with two signatures below.

I’m grateful to have been selected by the UMN Postdoctoral Association and Office of Postdoctoral Initiatives to receive the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to our Academic Community Award. #NPAW2025 #PostdocAppreciation #UMNProud

Sign up and join us!

The 2025-2026 BME TT Faculty jobs list has 27 positions. #FacultySearch #BME #BMEJobsList

Add a job: forms.gle/bwEzwHAEehBj...
Jobs list: ericaprattlab.com/bme_jobs_list/

Dr. Joshua François (Harvard Medical School): Quantifying Single-Cell Responses to Irradiation in 3D Dr. Joan Pulupa (Columbia University): Visualizing the 4-D Genome in Living Cells Dr. Amy Lee (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): Establishing biobanking strategies and formulations for cell therapy scalability

The third BME UNITE Future Faculty Seminar will be on Monday, September 15th, at 1 pm EST. Come hear from Drs. @jfrancois-eng.bsky.social, Joan Pulupa, and Amy Lee to learn more about their science and future research programs! Register here: tinyurl.com/bmeunite25

Coming up next week our 3rd BME UNITE seminar series featuring talented BME postdocs on the market - Monday Sept 15th at 1PM EST with @bmeunite.bsky.social

Register here: ucla.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

The Society for Reproductive Investigations is now accepting abstracts for the 2026 Annual Meeting!

Be a part of the SRI 73rd Annual Scientific Meeting and share your research with a global audience.

Submit your abstract today! www.sri-online.org/events/2026/...

Coming up next week Monday Aug 25th at 1PM EST our second BME UNITE seminar : with Taj Yeruva, @matteaallert.bsky.social and @saidaral.bsky.social . Register here: ucla.zoom.us/meeting/regi... @bmeunite.bsky.social

Dr. Mattea Allert (University of Minnesota): Perspectives in Multi-Modal Modeling from Birth to Adulthood: A Journey from the Early Microbiome to Neurological Disease Mechanisms Dr. Taj Yeruva (University of Maryland-College Park): Beyond the Barrier: Rethinking Mucus to Engineer Materials for Drug Delivery Dr. Said Arevalo-Alquichire (Harvard Medical School): RUNX1-based therapeutics for the treatment of vitreoretrinal diseases

The second BME UNITE Future Faculty Seminar will be on Monday, August 25th, at 1 pm EST. Come hear from Drs. Mattea Allert, Taj Yeruva, and Said Arévalo Alquichire, PhD to learn more about their science and future research programs! Register here: tinyurl.com/bmeunite25

These are the most challenging times for early-career scientists and engineers.

My team is doing its bit to help by maintaining and even expanding our database of funding opportunities for early-career researchers.

We found 437 of them.

Download it freely here: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...

The updated version of the database of PhD fellowships produced and maintained by my team can be downloaded by anyone here:

research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...

For each of the 187 fellowships, you will find a short description, deadline, $ amount, link, etc.

Good luck!

My team has updated our free database of POSTDOC fellowships.

This database contains 286 entries. For each entry, we provide a link, short description, deadline, amount, and eligibility criteria.

Download this updated and expanded database here: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...

Header of Pratt Laboratory website showing a colorful word cloud with terms like "computational," "biomaterials," "medical," and "systems," above the text "Tenure Track Faculty Positions in Biomedical Engineering." *alt-text generated using OpenAI GPT-4.1 mini*

The BME Faculty Jobs List is back for 2025-2026! Our goal is to support early-career faculty candidates with a centralized & open-access database. Please share & contribute! #FacultySearch #BME #BMEJobsList

Add a job: forms.gle/bwEzwHAEehBj...
Jobs list: ericaprattlab.com/bme_jobs_list/

📣 AIMBE has released data surveying >100 biomedical engineering departments on the impact of disruptions to research & training

Of respondents:
-71% reported grant terminations
-45% indicated reduced graduate student enrollment

Please share our 1-pager widely with your network 👇

bit.ly/3IXDVRW

Dr. Julia Brisbane (Georgia Institute of Technology): Health Disparities in Biomedical Engineering Courses Dr. Sindhuja Govindarajan (University of Pennsylvania): Engineering the Next Generation of Neuroimaging Tools Dr. Patricia Nano (University of California - Los Angeles): Maps to Mechanisms: Probing Cell Fate with Atlases and Pertubation Screens of the Human Brain

The first BME UNITE seminar will be on Monday, August 11th, at 1 pm EST. Come hear from Drs. Julia Brisbane, Sindhuja Govindarajan, and @prnano9.bsky.social to learn more about their science and future research programs! Register here: tinyurl.com/bmeunite25

I’m grateful & thrilled to have been selected as a Fellow in the BME UNITE Future Faculty program as I head into my first faculty application cycle. I’ll be giving a virtual presentation about my work and ideas for my future lab at 1pm EST/12pm CST on September 29. More info below ⬇️

The 12 trailblazing early-career scientists selected as BME UNITE Fellows are: Mattea Allert, Said Arevalo-Alquichire, Julia Brisbane, @jfrancois-eng.bsky.social , Amy Lee, ‪@prnano9.bsky.social‬, Kara Peak, Joan Pulupa, Tahoura Samad, Sindhuja Tirumalai Govindarajan, Claudia Varela, and Taj Yeruva.

Excited to share our new cohort of 2025 @bmeunite.bsky.social Future Faculty Fellows! These outstanding scientists are all on the job market this year. Register here for upcoming seminars to learn about their amazing work! ucla.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Kara smiles in front of her Future Faculty Poster titled “Peak Pregnancy & Developmental Biomechanics Lab”. She wears a navy dress, white floral cardigan, and green lanyard conference badge.

A group of nine people stand around a National Park sign marking the entrance to the Cibola National Forest.

A large group of eighteen conference attendees smile for a photo together.

Kara and her labmate, Paige, stand side by side for a photo together in front of a tan wall. They wear black shirts and skirts with conference badges on green lanyards.

Another year, another great Summer Bioengineering Conference! I especially loved all the sessions focused on women’s health and sex-based differences. Thanks to the #SBC2025 organizers 🔬