Hawa Racine Thiam

Hawa Racine Thiam is an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering and Microbiology & Immunology at Stanford University, where she holds appointments in the Bio-X, Maternal & Child Health Research Institute (MCHRI), and Sarafan ChEM-H. Her research integrates microscopy, microfabrication, and quantitative cell biology to study the cellular biophysics of immune cells, particularly NETosis - a neutrophil-mediated pathogen-trapping mechanism with implications in both infection and sterile inflammation.

• Ph.D. in Biophysics from Institut Curie/Paris Descartes University (2014)
• Postdoctoral training in Quantitative Cell Biology at National Institutes of Health (2022)
• Co-inventor of microfabricated devices for cellular mechanics analysis

Her lab's publications reveal trends in nuclear deformation mechanics, cytoskeletal dynamics, and RNA-protein complexes in autoimmunity. Key techniques include high-resolution time-lapse microscopy, mechanical modeling, and microenvironment engineering.

• Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator (2022-2027)
• Esther Ehrman Lazard Faculty Scholar (2022-2025)
• ASCB Porter Prize Honorable Mention (2020)
• NIH Fellow Award (2019)

As a mentor, she serves as Doctoral Dissertation Advisor and Postdoctoral Faculty Sponsor, guiding students in Bioengineering, Biophysics, and Immunology Ph.D. programs. Her work at Stanford's HR Thiam Lab aims to engineer innate immune cells for enhanced host defense while mitigating pathological inflammation through mechanobiological insights.