[caption id="attachment_5850" align="alignleft" width="200"]<a href="https://bme.fiu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Ramaswamy.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-5850" src="https://bme.fiu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Ramaswamy-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" /></a> Sharan Ramaswamy, Ph.D.[/caption]

Back in December 2009, Sharan Ramaswamy, Ph.D., joined the Biomedical Engineering department at Florida International University (FIU) as an assistant professor. His hard work, dedication, and love for his students has paid off. This past May, he received tenure and a promotion to associate professor.

“The success of my students is my greatest accomplishment. The cutting-edge journal publications, awards, and places they have gone on to since graduating are quite amazing to bear witness to,” Ramaswamy said. “I love the fact that being a Professor puts you in a position to implement your ideas and initiate positive changes.”

Throughout his time in the department and in the classroom, he has shared his research interests, which lie primarily in the area of cell and engineered tissue mechanics with application in cardiovascular regenerative medicine, with his students. Ramaswamy’s lab, the <em>Tissue Engineered Mechanics, Imaging and Materials Laboratory</em> (TEMIM LAB), conducts both experimental and computational investigations in this area.

Currently, he’s focusing his research on bringing regenerative solutions to the repair and/or replacement of defective heart valves which is needed primarily in treating children born with critical congenital valve defects. Artificial valves are not available in small sizes and cannot grow with the child, but a living substitute potentially will.

As Ramaswamy says, “developing an effective strategy requires an equal combination of Engineering, Biology and Medicine, i.e., ‘Biomedical Engineering’ in the truest sense.”