Sara Roccabianca

Biography

Sara Roccabianca joined the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis in 2024. She has been with the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Michigan State University from 2014– 2024. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in Biomedical Engineering at Yale University, working under the mentorship of Professor Jay D. Humphrey. Roccabianca earned her PhD in Engineering from the University of Trento, where she also received her Master's and Bachelor's degrees under the guidance of Professor Davide Bigoni.

Research

Roccabianca's research integrates experiments and modeling to explore urinary tract and cardiovascular biomechanics, focusing on tissue adaptation and maladaptation in response to various stimuli. 

Studies conducted by Professor Roccabianca's research group aim to advance the understanding of healthy tissue properties, elucidate changes occurring in response to injury and disease, and provide guidelines for improved treatment and intervention strategies. Her research has led to significant discoveries, such as the importance of cell-extracellular matrix mechanical interaction in myocardium modeling, the mechanical contribution of perivascular adipose tissue to vascular mechanics, and the impact of extracellular matrix remodeling on urinary bladder mechanics in conditions like radiation cystitis and neurogenic bladder due to spinal cord injury.