Marley Dewey

Dr. Marley Dewey joined the Bioengineering Department at UCSB in July 2023 as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Dewey earned her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Maine and her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. During her graduate career, she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, won various image of research contests, and was awarded the Annual Innovation Award for Outstanding PhD Thesis (University of Illinois). As a graduate student in the laboratory of Dr. Brendan Harley, she modified the mechanical, immunological, osteogenic, and antimicrobial properties of mineralized collagen scaffolds for enhanced repair of large-scale, craniomaxillofacial bone defects. After her graduate career, she was a postdoctoral NIH TL1 Clinical and Translational Science Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Stephen Badylak at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. As a postdoc, she worked on understanding the biology behind a novel class of extracellular vesicles, termed matrix-bound nanovesicles, and the use of these as a therapy for glaucoma and optic nerve repair. Her lab combines biomaterials with extracellular vesicles, and specifically, a new type of extracellular vesicle found embedded within tissues throughout the body, termed matrix-bound nanovesicles. Her lab studies how biomaterials and extracellular vesicles can be leveraged to discover treatments for bone cancer, accelerate bone repair, prevent bone infection, and restore coral reefs. As an assistant professor, she has won various awards and research grants, such as an NIH Maximizing Investigators Research Award (MIRA), a Hellman Family Faculty Fellowship, a Regents’ Junior Faculty Fellowship, and an Early Career Faculty Excellence Award. Outside of the lab, Dr. Dewey enjoys hiking, biking, swimming, and making art.