Q&A with faculty mentor Vin Pizziconi

Posted on: October 21, 2024

A longtime presence in the biomedical engineering program in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, Associate Professor Vin Pizziconi has been mentoring students since well before the inception of FURI, MORE and the Grand Challenges Scholars programs at ASU. He sees the research programs in the Fulton Schools as opportunities to interact with and impact highly motivated students one-on-one. Pizziconi leads the Laboratory of BioInspired Complex Adaptive Systems and is an expert in bioresponsive and biomimetic materials.


Vincent Pizziconi works with a student researcher in his lab.

What made you want to get involved as a mentor in the FURI, MORE and GCSP research stipend programs?

These programs help faculty mentors provide timely research experiences to interested students early on in their careers and encourage them to pursue graduate studies and explore research careers. They provide key resources, such as full-time staff organization, infrastructure, oversight and culminating symposia events. 

FURI, MORE and GCSP also contribute critical student and project support to provide research experiences to our young learners at scale. This greatly reduces the logistical and resource barriers for busy research faculty members to more proactively provide impactful and rich research experiences for our motivated undergraduate and master’s degree students.

What is your favorite part about seeing your students conduct research?

I enjoy witnessing their transition from classroom STEM learners to inquiry-based, critical, independent STEM thinkers gaining confidence to tackle challenging, real-world, open-ended problems that may benefit from new research approaches.

How have your students affected your research lab?

They provide my graduate students rich mentoring experiences and, in turn, the FURI, MORE, and GCSP students provide research assistance to the graduate students. Moreover, these students help build a collaborative culture and help energize the lab. The more curious and inquisitive students oftentimes suggest novel research ideas and new directions. 

What have you gained from being a FURI, MORE and GCSP research stipend mentor?

Mentoring highly motivated FURI, MORE and GCSP students is reassuring that the next generation STEM workforce will be well prepared to take on the daunting 21st century challenges, which brings much satisfaction to me.

What advice would you give to students who might be interested in participating in these programs?

Simply take advantage of these unique and transforming experiences early on in your careers. You will have unprecedented access to world-class research labs and mentors.

Why should other faculty members become FURI, MORE and GCSP research stipend mentors?

Mentoring brings ambitious students to your lab where you can help them explore STEM graduate studies and research careers, perhaps in your labs. It also provides unique mentoring experiences to your advanced graduate students and postdocs.

Vincent Pizziconi

I’m going into my fourth semester working in Dr. P’s lab and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. He’s very involved with everyone’s project in the lab and encourages me to think critically and reach solutions by myself. He’s the perfect mentor who is passionate about the work he does and radiates that energy to me when I feel challenged, reminding me of the bigger picture.

Aditi RaoBiomedical engineering GCSP research stipend student