Dr. Christman received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University in 2000. She then moved to California for both her graduate work and postdoctoral studies. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California San Francisco and Berkeley Joint Bioengineering Graduate Group in 2003 under the direction of Dr. Randall J. Lee at UCSF, where she examined in situ approaches to myocardial tissue engineering. She was a NIH postdoctoral fellow under the direction of Dr. Heather D. Maynard at the University of California, Los Angeles in the fields of polymer chemistry and nanotechnology. During this time, she developed novel methods for site-specifically patterning proteins into 2D and 3D structures. Dr. Christman joined the Department of Bioengineering in 2007 and is a member of the Institute of Engineering and Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Her lab focuses on developing novel biomaterials for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. Projects are highly interdisciplinary and include the development of materials for in vitro differentiation of stem cells to injectable biomaterials for tissue repair and regeneration.