Dr. Tomei is an Associate Professor in the departments of Biomedical Engineering, Immunology and Surgery and the director of the Islet Immunoengineering Laboratory at the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI) at the University of Miami Millers School of Medicine.
Dr. Tomei holds a MS in Materials Engineering from the Politecnico of Milan (Italy) and a PhD from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland). In her current position, she is applying her unique background in bioengineering and immunology to develop novel immunoengineering platforms to prevent rejection after islet transplantation and to promote antigen-specific tolerance for a cure of type-1 diabetes.
Dr. Tomei has secured and successfully administered grants from the NIH, Iacocca Family Foundation, JDRF and from companies, such as Johnson & Johnson and Semma Therapeutics. She has established strong collaborations with investigators within the University of Miami and at other institutions, including Drs. Weber and Safley at Emory University, Dr. Zustiak at Saint Louis University and Dr. Creusot at Columbia University. She has presented her research work as invited speaker at the annual meetings of the ADA, IPITA, BMES, TERMIS and at UC Irvine, Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Mayo Clinic. She has been a member of the JDRF beta cell replacement consortium since 2012, a member of the grant working groups for both the JDRF and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and she has served as ad hoc reviewer for the NIH and the DoD grant study sections. For her research innovation and productivity, she was awarded the 2015 Marc S. Goodman Prize to an Outstanding Young Scientist, the JDRF career development award, the Eliahu I. Jury Early Career Research Award in 2016, the Johnson A. Edosomwan Researcher of the Year Award from the College of Engineering (CoE) in 2019, and the Young Innovator in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering in 2020. For her teaching achievements, she was awarded the Alexander Orr Excellence in Teaching Award in 2018.