People

Nathan Richbourg started as an assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Department at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering in Fall 2025. He received his PhD in biomedical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2022 with Professor Nicholas Peppas before studying breast cancer dormancy as a postdoctoral researcher in the Peyton lab at UMass and Tufts University. His research interests focus on treating disease through controlled cell-environment interactions. The Richbourg lab coordinates fundamental and modular hydrogel design concepts to create tissue-mimicking materials for 3D cell culture. During his PhD, Dr. Richbourg introduced the Swollen Polymer Network Model of structure-based hydrogel design, which has reached an international audience through his website, hydrogeldesign.org.  These biomaterials mimic how diseases such as cancer, aging, and genetic disorders disrupt healthy processes at the tissue scale. His work focuses on diseases in bone marrow, where maintaining adult hematopoietic stem cells and treating cancer metastasis are critical medical problems. Outside the lab, he relaxes by rock climbing and hanging with his cats.

Graduate Researchers

If you are a graduate student at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, FSU, or FAMU or interested in becoming one and joining the Richbourg lab, please email Dr. Richbourg.

Undergraduate Researchers

If you are an undergraduate student at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, FSU, or FAMU and interested in doing research with the Richbourg lab, please email Dr. Richbourg with a CV, transcript, and a brief statement describing your motivations for doing research with this lab.