Northeastern University / prev. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Cynthia Hajal, PhD is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University. Her research interests are at the intersection of engineering and cancer biology, developing tissue engineered models of tumors to study cancer progression and drug delivery.
She received a BA in Economics and BS in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University and her SM and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. As a Ludwig Molecular Oncology Graduate Fellow working with Roger Kamm, PhD, she designed microfluidic models of the vasculature to investigate cancer metastasis and molecular transport between blood and tissues. Dr. Hajal conducted her postdoctoral research with Keith Ligon, MD/PhD at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. There, she investigated resistance mechanisms to chemotherapies in patient-derived glioma tumor models using functional genomics screens. She was selected as a Rising Star in Mechanical Engineering by MIT (2021).