Engineering Associate Professors Kareen Coulombe and Dan Harris were each awarded University faculty honors at the annual Sheridan Awards Ceremony April 29. Coulombe received one of three Karen T. Romer Awards for Excellence in Advising, while Harris received one of four Graduate School Faculty Awards for Advising and Mentoring.
Kareen Coulombe - Karen T. Romer Award for Excellence in Advising
The Romer Award was established in 2004 by the family of trustee Marty Granoff, and is named for a former Associate Dean of the College who was a creative and passionate advocate for undergraduate education. The Romer Advising Prize is presented each year to faculty members who have shown exceptional dedication, imagination, and commitment in their mentoring of undergraduates. Undergraduates praised Coulombe for her ability to combine academic excellence with deep, sustained commitment to undergraduate advising.
“What stands out most is how intentionally she prioritizes students despite an exceptionally demanding schedule,” said one student. “She leads cutting-edge research, including her lab’s bioelectric thread project that works to repair cardiac electrical conduction, while also building a biotechnology start-up. She regularly balances grant writing, research presentations, and startup pitch events. Even with these major responsibilities, she consistently makes time for students and treats mentorship as a core part of her role. In the classroom, Dr. Coulombe creates an environment where students feel both challenged and supported. She teaches with clarity and confidence, yet is always receptive to questions and discussion.”
Another student added, “In addition to her support of my attending conferences which have led to two internships and ultimately a full-time job upon graduation, Professor Coulombe has also supported me in my role as President of Brown’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). She has remained open and willing to participate in SWE Events – including a Professor Meet & Greet and other events. In this way, she puts in an active effort to be visible and present for the next generation of women engineers at Brown … In addition to all this direct work and mentorship, through her natural manner and way of being, Professor Coulombe truly cares and wants the best for her students. She inspires. I have never passed her once without her making an effort to say hello enthusiastically or check in on me. It’s a gift to have not only had the opportunity to learn from her, but to know someone who leads by such an example.”
Coulombe specializes in cardiovascular regenerative engineering to address global needs to develop novel therapies for heart attack and technologies for cardiotoxicity assessment. A major focus of her research is to re-engineer contractility in the heart after myocardial infarction (heart attack) using engineered human myocardium with cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells. She is a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and was the inaugural winner of the School of Engineering’s Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring in 2019.
Coulombe’s Engineered Cardiac Tissues for Regeneration, a technology using custom biomanufacturing to create cell-dense engineered human myocardium that deliver up to one billion cardiomyocytes (heart muscle cells), the number killed during a massive heart attack, received the most votes and was crowned Innovation of the Year at the first Innovation@Brown Showcase in 2023. She followed that with a top three final performance in 2025 for her “bioelectric threads”— thin strands of stem cell-derived heart tissue that carry electrical signals to help the heart beat in sync. In lab tests, the threads reconnected heart tissue and restored rhythm. Most recently, Coulombe received the 2026 Audience Choice award at Brown’s Ballroom Dance Team’s annual Dancing with the Professors show. Coulombe specifically noted how she appreciated the role reversal in the competition, which puts professors in an apprentice role learning from their student dancing mentors, could help build stronger connections with her students.
She becomes the fourth engineering faculty member to be honored (Janet Blume 2011, Jennifer Franck 2017, Christopher Rose 2025) with Brown’s Romer Prize.
Daniel Harris - Graduate School Faculty Award for Advising and Mentoring
The Graduate School Faculty Award for Advising and Mentoring recognizes faculty members who have made a significant contribution as an advisor and mentor to graduate students. Harris was nominated for the Physical Sciences awardee by a group of graduate students, alumni and colleagues who praised the qualities of curiosity, collaboration, support, and kindness as those fostered by Harris as adviser and director of the community within his lab.
Nominators cited specific examples of his mentorship, advice and education, as well as singling out his ability to be a friend and role model to so many in engineering. “I knew from the beginning of my graduate school journey I would be working with an adviser who supported my interests, upheld high standards of integrity, and would cater to my unique academic journey. Since arriving at Brown in Fall 2021, I have been involved in various fluid mechanics research projects. Dan encouraged me to explore different areas including diving headfirst into experiments that I had no prior experience with, engage in teaching opportunities, and collaborate with others, leading to many secondary projects alongside my primary research for my Ph.D. thesis. Throughout these projects, he ensured that, regardless of my level of experience or degree of involvement, my voice was always heard. He encouraged me to share both solutions and areas where I felt stuck, allowing me the time and freedom to explore challenging questions and pursue new paths that aligned with my interests, even if they diverged from his initial vision for the project. What remained constant throughout was Dan’s unwavering support. He was always willing to think creatively, offering practical solutions to difficult problems, providing time to work through complex equations and experimental challenges, and helping me brainstorm new approaches when I was stuck.”
Another recent doctoral candidate pointed out the times where Harris’ mentoring style directly led to a publishable result. “We worked together at the front of the lab, going through various physical arguments until we arrived at a testable and elegant solution. This result became one of the most significant revelations in my first first-author paper, which was published a few months later … While Dan is our PI and mentor, he fosters an environment where we feel like peers, reducing power dynamics while still remaining an invaluable and incredibly knowledgeable resource. In addition to being a strong technical advisor, Dan’s soft skills play a pivotal role in the lab’s success. The environment he cultivates within the lab is a testament to his leadership.”
Honors stemming from students under Harris’ tutelage include frequent selections of published papers as editor’s highlights/suggestions, rising stars, and best poster selections at conferences. His student Jack-William Barotta Ph.D. ’26 recently won the Emerging Soft Matter Excellence Award by the American Physical Society, and John Antolik, Ph.D. ’25 earned the Gallery of Fluid Motion’s Poster Prize in 2023 for his thesis work on water entry. Antolik was also awarded the 2025 Joukowsky Dissertation Prize from Brown.
He leads a research team that explores fluid mechanics and soft matter using experimental and mathematical modeling techniques. The work has ranged from efforts such as developing new tools to help researchers better understand the movements of microorganisms, helping directly measure the forces that cause small objects to cluster together on the surface of a liquid — a phenomenon known as the “Cheerios effect” — to efforts providing new an understanding on how partially submerged objects experience drag and investigating forces during water entry. In 2024, Harris was awarded a CAREER early faculty grant from the National Science Foundation. He was the School of Engineering’s Teaching Excellence awardee in 2021, given the University’s Excellence in Research Mentoring Award at the 2022 Summer Research Symposium, and was voted Tau Beta Pi (the engineering honor society)’s Dedicated Faculty Award winner in 2023.
Harris is the second recipient of the Graduate School Faculty Award for Advising and Mentoring from the School of Engineering. Professor Anubhav Tripathi won the award in 2025.