Princess Imoukhuede and Alvitta Ottley, both faculty members in the McKelvey School of Engineering, have been named among the 1,000 inspiring Black scientists in America by Cell Mentor.

Imoukhuede is an associate professor of biomedical engineering and director of diversity initiatives for McKelvey Engineering. Her research examines mechanisms regulating angiogenic signaling with focus on tyrosine kinase receptors, VEGFRs and PDGFRs. She pioneers both quantitative biological measurements and computational biological models to delineate ligand-receptor binding, receptor and effector phosphorylation, and sprouting angiogenic hallmarks (cell proliferation and migration). This bottom-up systems biology paradigm offers mechanistic insight towards directing vascular signaling with translational implications to cancers and cardiovascular diseases.

Ottley is an assistant professor of computer science & engineering. Her research interests include information visualization, human-computer interaction and visual analytics and pursues areas such as learning and modeling user behavior, individual differences and personalized health risk communication. Her work has been published in leading conferences and journals such as CHI, InfoVis, VAST and TVCG.

Other Washington University Black scientists named to the list are Sarah England, professor of obstetrics & gynecology, vice chair for research, and the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Professor of Medicine; and Swanne Gordon, assistant professor of biology.

The complete list of 1,000 Black scientists is here.


The McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis promotes independent inquiry and education with an emphasis on scientific excellence, innovation and collaboration without boundaries. McKelvey Engineering has top-ranked research and graduate programs across departments, particularly in biomedical engineering, environmental engineering and computing, and has one of the most selective undergraduate programs in the country. With 165 full-time faculty, 1,420 undergraduate students, 1,614 graduate students and 21,000 living alumni, we are working to solve some of society’s greatest challenges; to prepare students to become leaders and innovate throughout their careers; and to be a catalyst of economic development for the St. Louis region and beyond.

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