BIOE Alumna Returns to the Department as a Faculty Member: Meet Victoria D’Agostino, PhD
Main photo: D’Agostino in lab during her second co-op at Center for Systems Biology at MGH Harvard, around 2017.
Victoria D’Agostino
Victoria D’Agostino, PhD, was uniquely involved in her undergraduate bioengineering program. As one of the first students to enroll, she was perfectly poised to provide feedback and offer her opinion to her professors: Teaching Professor Tim Lannin, COE Distinguished Professor Jeff Ruberti, and Associate Professor Carolyn Lee-Parsons, all from the College of Engineering at Northeastern University, back in 2014.
A Rhode Island native, D’Agostino picked Northeastern University for it’s “cutting-edge and innovative,” reputation. “The school itself is so innovative, hands-on,” she said. “Really cutting edge with teaching, research, and experiential learning, of course.”
Undergraduate Experience
D’Agostino entered undergrad as a Chemical Engineering major. But when the Department of Bioengineering announced a Bachelor’s degree program, she quickly jumped at the opportunity to switch to Bioengineering with concentration in Cell and Tissue. As a member of the first official undergraduate class at Northeastern, she served as a guinea pig for the developing program-in-progress.
The Department of Bioengineering’s first graduating undergraduate class in 2019. D’Agostino is pictured center/back left, in purple.
“I mean, the 60 or so of us that were in the first class were the entire department at that time. We felt like we had a voice and that was really powerful,” D’Agostino reflected. “And that can be somewhat unprecedented for a college student, someone very early on in their academic career.”
From 2014 to 2019, D’Agostino completed three co-ops and worked with Carolyn Lee-Parsons, an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry and Chemical Biology. Her first co-op, in industry, solidified her commitment to academia (and disinterest in industry). The second was with The Harvard School of Public Health, working on medical device point of care research related to cervical cancer. This project led her to Botswana for her final co-op, where she established connections with Botswanan researchers as a part of the Botswana Harvard Aids Partnership.
D’Agostino drew inspiration from her capstone team sponsors, Associate Professors Chiara Bellini and Jessica Oakes, two exemplary women in academia. Following such fulfilling research experiences in undergrad, she decided to continue on to complete her PhD in bioengineering, seeking input and advice from her mentors at Northeastern.
Graduate School
A dutiful keyword google search led her to Nimmi Ramanujam, a Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University who welcomed her into her lab. Over the next few years, D’Agostino used optical tools such as fluorescent microscopy and spectroscopy to study metabolism in breast cancer. Somewhere along the way, she realized her passion for teaching. Her time in lab felt that much more fulfilling, when she realized the knowledge she could then bestow upon mentees.
“I have just always loved teaching. So, when I was in undergrad at Northeastern and throughout my PhD, I always found myself teaching and mentoring both intentionally and unintentionally,” she said. “But as it went on [I was] very intentionally seeking out opportunities for teaching.”
Despite being bogged down by PhD work, D’Agostino made time to TA even when it wasn’t required of her. She completed a teaching certificate at Duke, then landed a role as an adjunct teaching professor for the Department of Biology at Elon University, eventually leading her to apply to become a full-time teaching professor at Northeastern University.
Returning to Northeastern as a Teaching Faculty Member
D’Agostino’s experiences during the early years of the bioengineering undergraduate program drew her to return to her alma mater. “[The collaboration at the time] felt very genuine on the part of the department, which is something that drew me back. Those memories and how students were valued. … It was really collaborative, and the department was committed to improving and working towards something really excellent.”
As an Assistant Teaching Professor, D’Agostino’s first class is Bioengineering Measurement, Experimentation and Statistics (BIOE 2365) this fall, where she plans on emphasizing the importance of “troubleshooting, determination, and embracing the messy.”
“The folks who are all part of my journey are still here, which is really awesome,” D’Agostino concluded, referring to her Northeastern mentors. “It’s really inspiring and cool to be here. I’m excited to be colleagues with them now.”