The medical school recently welcomed two new faculty members to its departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and Biomedical Sciences.
Adil Akkouch, PhD, MSc, began his duties at WMed on December 17 as an assistant professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. Dr. Akkouch came to the medical school following more than three years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Iowa, where he worked at the Center for Computer-Aided Design in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and the Iowa Institute for Oral Health Research in the College of Dentistry and the Carver College of Medicine.
Dr. Akkouch is an accomplished researcher with a portfolio that includes numerous presentations and publications and his work has garnered funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH), among other entities. His research interests include regenerative medicine, 3D bioprinting, gene therapy, stem cell biology, mircroRNAs, immunoengineering, advanced biomaterials and nanotechnology, and craniofacial and vascular tissue engineering.
Dr. Akkouch is an alumnus of Laval University in Quebec, Canada, where he earned his Master of Science degree in Experimental Medicine in 2008 and his PhD in Experimental Medicine in 2012. He completed his undergraduate studies at Ibn Tofail University in Morocco where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Animal Physiology.
Currently, Dr. Akkouch is a member of several professional organizations, including the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society, the Society for Biomaterials, the International Society for Biofabrication, the International Association for Dental Research, and the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
In coming to WMed, Dr. Akkouch will work closely Yong Li, MD, PhD, in the medical school’s new Division of Medical Engineering. Dr. Li, chief of the Division of Medical Engineering, began his work at WMed in October.
Meanwhile, Kirsten A. Porter-Stransky, PhD, was welcomed to WMed on December 10 as an assistant professor of Physiology in the Department of Biomedical Sciences.
Prior to coming to WMed, Dr. Porter-Stransky was a postdoctoral fellow for three years in the Department of Human Genetics at Emory University, where she worked in the David Weinshenker Laboratory investigating dopamine and norepinephrine interactions in modulating arousal and drug reinforcement.
In addition to her work as a postdoctoral fellow at Emory, Dr. Porter-Stransky was a behavioral neuroscience instructor at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta in 2016 and 2017 and also served as a postdoctoral grant writing mentor to neuroscience graduate students at Emory in 2015 and 2017, among other duties.
Dr. Porter-Stransky is an alumna of the University of Michigan where she earned her PhD in Biopsychology in 2014 and a master’s degree in Psychology in 2011. She completed her undergraduate studies at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and graduated summa cum laude.
Dr. Porter-Stransky has several peer-reviewed publications to her credit and is currently a peer reviewer for the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and the behavioral neuroscience lead for Sweet Briar College women in STEM. She also is a member of Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience and the Society for Neuroscience.