Background
Olukemi “Kemi” was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Nigeria, West Africa. She earned her Bachelor in Chemical Engineering at the City College of New York (CCNY) of the City University of New York (CUNY) in 2002. She received her Masters in Materials Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University (OSU) in 2005. She briefly worked as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Biological & Physical Sciences at the Columbus State Community College (CSCC), Ohio. After that, she became employed as a U.S. defense contractor in a start-up company, where she was promoted to the Materials Development Manager role within 6 months of employment in Wausau, Wisconsin. After a year, she moved to Orange, Virginia, where she worked as a Process & Development Engineer for 3 years before pursuing her doctorate in Chemical Engineering at the University of South Florida (USF). Upon earning her doctorate, she became an NIH postdoctoral fellow at Boston University (BU), Department of Biomedical Engineering, in collaboration with BU-School of Medicine Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute’s (WCVI) training program. Now, she lectures at the University of South Florida in the Department of Medical Engineering.
While at the Ohio State University, she initiated and helped implement the first recruitment effort at the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) graduate school fair in 2004. While at USF, she led STEM tours for younger students K-12 for the Girls Inc. of Pinellas County, the National Girls Collaborative Project of Florida, and MOSI’s Summer Science Camp. She also mentored high school students for the TRIO Upward Bound program and several USF undergraduates. She is the co-founder and was the preceding president of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) STEM chapter at USF.
She is married to a U.S. Air Force Major, and they have a son and a daughter.
Mission
Dr Akintewe’s passion is to teach, mentor, and coach the next generation of students who succeed in STEM careers by intentionally employing key principles of good pedagogy that promote learning, leadership, and success.
News:
Jerome Krivanek Distinguished Teacher Award
WLP Faculty Excellence Awardee
BME Professor Shares Experience on Challenging Gender Inequality in STEM
Online Learning Ventures into a Laboratory Setting
Teaching career is highlighted on page 26
Dissertation on Micro-contact printing of cells, page 22
Overview of research, fellowship and awards, pages 3-4
Receives UNCF/Merck Graduate Fellowship
Publications
[1] J. Yu, V. Chitalia, O. Akintewe, A. Edwards, JY. Wong, “Determinants of Hemodialysis Performance: Modeling Fluid and Solute Transport in Hollow-Fiber Dialyzers”, Regen. Eng. Transl. Med., pp 1-10 2019
[2] JE. Gaines, O. Akintewe, S. Small, T. Henry, “Engineering Design Instruction Using Slack for Project Support and Teamwork”, ASEE Conference Paper, 2019
[3] O. Akintewe, JE. Gaines, SK. Small, “Flip-J Instructional Strategies in the First-year Engineering Design Classroom”, FYEE Conference Paper, 2019
[4] O. Akintewe, S. DuPont, K. K. Elineni, M. Cross, R. Toomey, N. Gallant “Micro-contact printing of tissue precursors via geometrically patterned shape-changing hydrogel stamps preserves cell viability and organization”, Bioprinting, Vol 8, pp 22-29 2017.
[5] O. Akintewe, E. Roberts, N. Rim, M. Ferguson, J. Wong “Design Approaches to Myocardial and Vascular Tissue Engineering” Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering, Vol 19 pp 389-414 2017
[6] O. Akintewe, S. DuPont, K. K. Elineni, M. Cross, R. Toomey, N. Gallant “Shape-changing hydrogel surfaces trigger rapid release of patterned tissue modules”. Acta Biomaterialia, 2015, 11, pp 96-103.
[7] M. Zhernenkov, R. Ashkar, H. Feng, O. Akintewe, N. Gallant, R. Toomey, J. Ankner, R. Pynn “Thermoresponsive PNIPAM Coatings on Nanostructured Gratings for Cell Alignment and Release”. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2015, 7 (22), pp 11857–11862
[8] O. Ayodeji, E. Graham, D. Tomasko, J. Lannutti, D. Kniss, “Carbon Dioxide Impregnation of Electrospun Polycaprolactone Fibers,” The Journal of Supercritical Fluids, 2007, Vol.41, 173-178.
[9] H. Powell, O. Ayodeji, T. Sproule, D. Tomasko, J. Lannutti, D. Kniss, D. Powell, “Chemotherapeutic Implants via Subcritical CO2 Modification,” Biomaterials, 2007, Vol. 28, pp 5562-5569.
Patents
[1] A. Manesh, M. Tercha, O. Ayodeji, B. Anderson, B. Meliska, F. Ceranski, Tension-based NonPneumatic Tire, U.S Patent No. 8,104,524, Jan. 31, 2012, Resilient Technologies, Wausau, WI
[2] S. DuPont, O. Akintewe, K. K. Elineni, M. Cross, R. Toomey, N. Gallant, High-throughput Platform for Bioprinting Tissue Modules. Patent filed Oct. 2016, USF Ref. No. 14B171, USF.