BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Ryan D. Sochol is currently the Director of the Micro Mechanical Methods for Biology (M3B) Laboratory Program – a subset of the Liwei Lin Laboratory – within the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. As director of the M3B Lab, Dr. Sochol currently advises over 25 undergraduate student researchers, while collaborating with the laboratories of Prof. Luke P. Lee and Prof. Song Li in the Department of Bioengineering. Previously, Dr. Sochol received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University in 2006, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2009 and 2011, respectively. In the summer of 2012, he served as a visiting Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Shoji Takeuchi's Biohybrid System Laboratory at the University of Tokyo, which has led to a continued collaboration between the M3B Laboratory Program and the University of Tokyo.

Microengineered Technologies for Controlling Cellular Functions [BPN438]
Mechanical engineering methods and microfabrication techniques offer powerful means for solving biological challenges. In particular, micro/nanofabrication processes enable researchers to engineer technologies at scales that are biologically relevant and advantageous for both controlling and sensing cellular functions. Here, novel micro/nanoengineered platforms are employed to investigate and regulate cellular processes.