Meet Nathaniel Linden-Santangeli

Tell us a bit about your background:

I completed my undergraduate bioengineering and applied mathematics training at the University of Washington in Seattle. At UW I worked in several labs on research spanning from protein design to neural engineering. These research experiences, along with my curiosity for science and interests in math and biology, played a significant role in my decision to pursue a PhD. When choosing a graduate program, UCSD provided an incredible opportunity for me to work at the intersection of math, biology, and engineering.

What are you studying/researching?

I work with professors Padmini Rangamani (Dept. of Pharmacology and Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) and Boris Kramer (Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) in two interdisciplinary fields called systems biology and uncertainty quantification. On the biology side of things my research uses computer simulations to better understand how cells in our bodies process and respond to incoming information. The math side of my research develops statistical approaches to ensure that our computer simulations match actual experiments, and to account for errors in the modeling process. This work has led me to collaborate with several research groups within the UCSD School of Medicine and internationally with researchers from from Deakin University in Australia, and University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC.

 Tell me a little bit about your campus involvement at UC San Diego. 

I have been involved in several organizations that aim to strengthen the community within the Mechanical Engineering Departments and UCSD, including the Graduate Student Association, the MAE Peer-2-Peer Committee, and the MAE Graduate Student Council. Additionally, I have volunteered outside of UCSD, working to share my passion for science with young (K-12) scientists from the greater San Diego community and the Preuss School at UCSD. On the academic side, I have had the opportunity to be a member of the diverse community of UCSD Sloan Scholars and a part of the UCSD Interfaces Graduate Training program.

Why UC San Diego?

I chose UCSD because of the outstanding opportunity to work on interdisciplinary research with my advisors Boris Kramer and Padmini Rangamani. UCSD provides an extremely collaborative research environment that is key to enabling my research.

Have you been awarded any fellowships or grants during graduate school? If so, which ones?

Yes, I received a scholarship from the Alfred P. Sloan foundation along with a fellowship on the UCSD Interfaces NIH T32 training grant.

What has been your favorite part about your graduate student experience at UC San Diego?

I have really enjoyed getting to work with a diverse group of individuals both inside and out of the lab on impactful research and projects.