Erika Moore is the inaugural Rhines Rising Star Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Florida. She defended her PhD in biomedical engineering from Duke University in May of 2018. She earned her undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Erika’s work broadly focuses on understanding how immune cells can be leveraged to enhance tissue regeneration. Under the guidance of Dr. Jennifer L. West at Duke University, Erika’s thesis focused on the use of macrophages, innate immune cells, to support vascularized engineered tissue. This work has been published in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Advanced Biosystems and Regenerative Engineering and Translational Medicine. Erika was also awarded the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation from the Duke University department of biomedical engineering for this work. Erika currently works as a visiting assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University in the department of biomedical engineering. Her current work, in collaboration with Dr. Jennifer Elisseeff, focuses on the roles of B cells, adaptive immune cells, during biomaterial-mediated healing. Ongoing research efforts seek to develop materials capable of directing immune cells towards desired clinical outcomes. Erika is a former Trustee on the Duke Board of Trustees. She has been awarded the NSF Graduate Fellowship, the Ford Foundation Fellowship, as well as the Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship from Johns Hopkins University.