Fateme Fayyaz Bakhsh

Dr. Marston is currently the George Johnson Jr Distinguished Professor of Surgery at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

Dr Marston is a graduate of Harvard University and received his medical degree from the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He completed a general surgical residency and fellowship in vascular surgery at the University of North Carolina Hospitals in Chapel Hill, NC. His research interests include the diagnosis and management of chronic venous insufficiency, the treatment of critical limb ischemia, and advanced therapies for healing chronic wounds. He has been a clinical investigator on over 50 clinical trials in the areas listed above, both on the local and national level and has experience in the design and conduct of clinical trials at all levels of the approval process.

Dr. White-Chu is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Oregon Health & Sciences University (OHSU) and is the medical director of the Wound Healing Program at the Portland VA Health Care System (VAPHCS). She serves on the board of the Wound Healing Society and is the Co-Chair of the Government Relations Committee and an active member of the Education Committee.

Dr. Jozic is a Research Associate Professor in the Dr.Phillip Frost Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Surgery. He did his postdoctoral training in the lab of Marjana Tomic-Canic at UM, where he focused on understanding molecular mechanisms by which glucocorticoids inhibit wound healing. He was a previous winner of the 3M Fellowship from the Wound Healing Foundation in 2015, Young Investigator Award from WHS in 2018, as well as the H. Paul Ehrlich Rising Star Award from the Wound Healing Foundation in 2022. His research interests are aimed at understanding the role of lipid rafts in cutaneous biology, particularly focusing on chronic wounds, hypertrophic scarring, scarring alopecia, psoriasis and age-related changes in skin. On the basic science level, Dr. Jozic seeks to understand how cells navigate the complex 3D environment to promote directionality and cohesiveness necessary for successful wound closure. He has identified caveolin-1 as a potential biomarker of older skin and non-healing chronic wounds and is now trying to understand the intricate mechanisms by which caveolin proteins regulate cell migration. Currently, Dr. Jozic's lab is working on developing lipidomic and proteomic approaches to identify biomarkers of various skin diseases which will in the early detection of chronic wounds and provide targeted treatments as well as to develop novel formulations for targeting these molecules.

Dr. Juliane Nguyen is Professor and Vice Chair in the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Founding Director of the C3 Drug Delivery CTSA Predoctoral Training Program. Her interdisciplinary research integrates molecular engineering and pharmaceutical sciences to develop personalized biotherapeutics for myocardial infarction, wound healing, colitis, cancer, and other diseases. She has overseen a research portfolio totaling more than $24 million, and her work has been published in Nature Biotechnology, Nature Communications, Nature Reviews Bioengineering, Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, and other leading journals.

Dr. Nguyen is a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and the Controlled Release Society (CRS). Her honors include the 2026 CRS Samyang Award for outstanding innovation and contributions to drug delivery, the NSF CAREER Award, the AAPS Emerging Leader Award, and the BMES-CMBE Young Innovator Award. She was elected by the CRS membership to serve as Director-at-Large from 2026–2029.

Dr. Nguyen is Executive Editor of Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, Associate Editor of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering, and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Controlled Release. She previously served on the NIH Drug and Biologic Therapeutic Delivery study section. Deeply committed to mentorship, she has advised more than 90 postdoctoral fellows, PhD students, and undergraduate researchers and founded the Future Leaders Launchpad to prepare emerging scientists for leadership careers in academia and industry.