I had the pleasure of running into the impressive scientist and educator Nina Tandon at the launch party for GE Garages’ “Making Things” series at STORY last week, along with a few other talented women scientists and artists. She shared with us, among other things, her deep excitement about current projects in progress, her passion for making use of open hardware microcontrollers for doing science, and the importance of Becky and Limor’s fingernail polish in all of the product videos at Adafruit — what a great message that is for young women engineers.

I shared above the video of her TED talk from last year on the topic of “Caring for Engineered Tissues” – well worth your time if you haven’t caught it yet.

A snapshot bio from her site:

She is an electrical and biomedical engineer at Columbia University’s Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering, and adjunct professor of Electrical Engineering at the Cooper Union, teaching a “Bioelectricity” class.

She spent her early career in telecom (Avaya Labs), and transitioned into biomedical engineering via her Fulbright in Italy (working on an electronic odor detector). She completed her PhD under Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic at MIT and Columbia, researching electrical stimulation for cardiac tissue engineering. After consulting at McKinsey from 2008-10, she has resumed her research on electrical stimulation for broader tissue engineering applications.

Today is Ada Lovelace day! Celebrating the achievements of women in science, art, design, technology, engineering and math! Ada Lovelace Day is about sharing stories of women — whether engineers, scientists, technologists or mathematicians — who have inspired you to become who you are today. The aim is to create new role models for girls and women by celebrating amazing women making and doing cool things. If you’re looking for a worldwide Ada Lovelace Day event? Please visit the Finding Ada events page. Be sure to check out all our posts today and from previous years here of amazing women!

Today everything in the Adafruit store is 10% off, just use the code ALD12 on check out, use this code to pick something special person in your life that will spark her imagination for a lifelong career or hobby!