Dr. Treena Livingston Arinzeh is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey. She received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rutgers University in 1992, a M.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1994, and a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999. Upon the completion of her Ph.D. work, she accepted a position as a development engineer/project leader at Osiris Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company specializing in stem cell regenerative medicine, in Baltimore, Maryland. Her work at Osiris focused on the development of stem cell based therapies for orthopaedic applications. Her most notable finding was allogeneic mesenchymal stem cells could be used to heal segmental bone defects without the use of immunosuppressive therapies.
In September of 2001, she joined the faculty of New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) as an assistant professor in Biomedical Engineering where she continues to develop both educational and research programs in the area of stem cell tissue engineering and applied biomaterials.
She has been recognized with numerous awards as a young investigator for her pioneering work in stem cell research and has brought considerable attention to the state of New Jersey for her work in this area. She was awarded the National Science Foundation Early CAREER Development Award in 2003. She later received the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest national honor awarded to young scientists and engineers, during the fall of 2004 at a ceremony at the White House.
She has been featured in newspaper articles in The Star Ledger, The Jersey Journal and The New York Times and has appeared on television news, NJN News and UPN9. She has also been recognized in Black Issues in Higher Education and Essence Magazine for her achievements in stem cell research. Dr. Arinzeh has been acknowledged in the U.S. House of Representatives as a part of Congressional Record for her accomplishments.
Dr. Arinzeh developed the first Tissue Engineering and Applied Biomaterials Laboratory at NJIT, which has received over $1.5 million in external funding from federal, state, and private granting agencies since its inception in the fall of 2001. She has published over 60 journal articles, conference proceedings, and book chapters. Her current research focuses on systematic studies of the effect of biomaterial properties on stem cell differentiation.
She is strongly committed to mentoring underrepresented minority and female students in engineering and science. She is an active mentor for high school students as part of the Project SEEDs program, where low income or underrepresented minority students perform summer research in her laboratory, and she is a mentor for junior high school female students as part of the FEMME 8 program at NJIT.
Dr. Arinzeh was born and raised in Cherry Hill, New Jersey to Marva Livingston and the late Andrew Livingston, Jr. She currently lives in West Orange, New Jersey where she is happily married to Uzo Arinzeh, Rutgers alumnus from class of 1990 and Wall Street executive, and has two children, Nneka and Quintin Arinzeh.