In 2025 and early 2026, the Santerre lab congratulated four new graduates: Yizhou Chen, PhD, Katya D’Costa, PhD, Alex Jucan, MASc, and Zach Gouveia, PhD!
Santerre Lab graduates Alex, Yizhou, and Zach, along with Dr. Santerre and other graduates from the Translational Biology and Engineering Program.
Yizhou defended his PhD thesis in January 2025, and is currently working as an industrial postdoctoral fellow at Laetech, a Santerre lab spin-out company that he helped co-found with Brian Webb.
Having explored scientific discovery through the lens of translation during her PhD project, Katya is now looking forward to applying these skills in the field of Project Management. She is excited to grow in her new position at a biopharmaceutical CDMO company!
Alex has successfully defended her MASc from the Institute of Biomedical Engineering. Her thesis investigated the delivery of human adipose derived support cells on polyurethane/gelatin micro-carriers to support hiPSC cardiomyocyte cell therapy through in vitro work and in vivo models. She is planning to travel in the next 5 months and then continue her research journey in pursuing a PhD.
In the Santerre and Finer Labs, Zach has been focused on focused on redesigning of one of our most omnipresent biomaterials – resin-based dental restoratives (RBRs) or “fillings”. Specifically, Zach’s thesis worked to address RBR instability through the incorporation of non-MA hydrolytically stable chemistries with the purpose of retarding or eliminating simulated oral biodegradation, while maintaining or exceeding the mechanical, biological and workflow standards of traditional RBR systems. Zach has been successful in engineering feasible alternative dental resin materials and advancing knowledge in the development of oral biomaterials. Zach has championed scientific communication, presenting his work in 6 international and 4 national conferences while authoring 10 peer-reviewed manuscripts, 2 provisional patents, and a book chapter. Zach has also been the recipient of several prestigious awards and scholarships that have fully funded his exciting work. This includes external support from the Alpha-Omega Foundation of Canada (2020-2023) and scholarship funding through OGS, NSERC-CGS, NSERC-MSFSS, and an NSERC Post-Doctoral Fellowship to support his next steps at Harvard University, where he will work to develop sophisticated microphysical models to better understand oral disease, and screen emerging therapeutics.
Congratulations to all of our graduates!