From Lab to Classroom: Penn GSE Graduates Are Expanding Access to Mechanobiology

In January 2025, inside Penn GSE’s virtual reality lab, Philadelphia high school and middle school STEM teachers stepped into an immersive scientific world. Wearing headsets, they explored microscopic cellular interactions, watched calcium ions move through a Venus flytrap, and examined how mechanical forces influence biological systems. The experience was not a simulation for entertainment. It was professional development grounded in cutting-edge research from the Center for Engineering Mechanobiology (CEMB), a National Science Foundation-funded Science and Technology Center headquartered at Penn Engineering.

The team behind the effort included recent Penn GSE Learning Sciences and Technologies (LST) alumni Haowei Li, GED’25, and Zheng Bian, GED’25, along with fellow alum Amanda Cottone, GRD’19, director of research administration and STEM education at CEMB. Together, they are building a bridge between university research and K–12 classrooms across to the School District of Philadelphia and surrounding districts.

Mechanobiology is an interdisciplinary field that studies how cells respond to mechanical forces and how those forces shape biological systems. The work often informs medical innovations such as organ-on-a-chip technologies that allow researchers to test treatments using engineered cell systems rather than animal or human trials.

“It’s a combination of physics, biology, and chemistry,” Li explained. “It’s about how cells interact with each other and how those small changes can impact the wider human body.”

For Cottone, the challenge has never been just conducting advanced research. It has been translating it.

“We work at the cutting edge of engineering and biology,” Cottone said. “But if we want long-term impact, we have to think about how teachers and students encounter these ideas for the first time.”

Before Li and Bian joined the project, CEMB hosted in-person professional development sessions for teachers who came to Penn’s labs, worked with researchers, and engaged with mechanobiology concepts hands-on. Those sessions were meaningful but limited in scale.

When Li entered the Faculty Research Apprenticeship (FRA) at Penn GSE, she saw an opportunity to expand access.

Li, who studied cognitive psychology as an undergraduate at UC San Diego, applied her interest in how people process complex information to STEM education. At Penn GSE, she designed a multimedia, online professional development course that helps teachers understand mechanobiology and translate it into middle and high school classrooms.

“It’s complicated to just transform lab materials into an online platform,” Li said. “Teachers need structure. They need logical progression. They need to see how this connects back to their own classrooms.”

Under Cottone’s mentorship and in collaboration with Graduate School of Education Presidential Professor Susan Yoon’s lab, Li built a course that allows teachers to engage asynchronously and review at their own pace. She also gathered usability feedback through focus groups and iterated frequently.

“Every time I met with teachers, I learned something new,” she said. “Some prefer five-minute micro-lessons. Others want longer deep dives. You have to balance those perspectives carefully.”

Li’s work has since led to a conference paper being submitted and accepted to the International Society of the Learning Sciences, with her as first author.

While Li focused on scaling professional development to expand PD access to teachers beyond the Philadelphia region, Bian approached the work through immersive design and curriculum innovation. Bian’s path to STEM was unconventional. As an undergraduate in China, she majored in Chinese literature and struggled in math and science courses.

“In high school, I failed almost every STEM test,” Bian said. “I never imagined I would be building VR environments.”

At Penn GSE, that changed. Through coursework in programming and educational technology, Bian discovered both confidence and curiosity in technical design. The Learning Sciences and Technologies program gave her room to experiment, from coding to augmented and virtual reality. 

The FRA introduced her to mechanobiology, and under Cottone’s guidance, Bian explored how multiple external representations—live organisms, computational simulations, mechanical models, and immersive VR environments—could make invisible complex systems principles visible.

“Mechanobiology is very abstract,” Bian said. “If you just explain it with slides, it’s difficult. But if students see a real Venus flytrap react, then see the ion flow in a computational model, then experience it in VR, it becomes connected.”

The Venus flytrap became the anchor phenomenon. Students observe the plant snapping shut, analyze models simulating calcium and potassium ion movement, and examine mechanical models built by teachers and students to mimic the threshold-based closing response of the flytrap. Through these layered representations, Bian helps students see how biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering intersect.

“The goal is not only to teach mechanobiology,” she said. “It’s to help students think across disciplines.”
Cottone sees this interdisciplinary mindset as essential.

“Engineering mechanobiology exists at intersections,” Cottone said. “If we want students to enter these careers, we have to help them see how disciplines work together early on.”

A defining feature of the collaboration has been its close partnership with teachers in the School District of Philadelphia. Participating teachers in the hybrid professional development model engage with Li’s asynchronous online course modules, attend in-person workshops at Penn, and provide structured feedback through focus groups and classroom implementation. Throughout the year, teachers piloted curriculum materials in their own classrooms, shared usability insights, and collaborated directly with the research team to refine lesson sequencing, pacing, and alignment with district standards.

For Li, community engagement fundamentally shaped the design process.

“Teachers bring real classroom experience,” she said. “Without them, the work would not have real impact.”

Teachers shared insights about pacing, prior knowledge needed, standards alignment, classroom constraints, curriculum design decisions, and student engagement. Their feedback influenced both the online professional development modules and the immersive VR tools.

Bian continues to meet weekly with Cottone to refine curriculum materials and expand immersive components. What began as a student research experience has grown into an ongoing instructional design and research partnership at CEMB. Later this year, Bian will represent CEMB at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS) conferences.

“GSE students bring expertise in learning sciences and design,” she said. “Our center brings advanced STEM research experiences directly to teachers. Together, we can create something that neither side could do alone.”
Li recently returned to China to design training systems in the workplace using AI and educational technologies. Bian remains at Penn as an instructional designer and research assistant, while also developing BioQuest XR, a platform that enables teachers to generate immersive biology learning experiences.

For Cottone, the project’s impact goes beyond technology. “It’s about cultivating confidence,” she said. “Li and Bian came into this space from different academic backgrounds. Watching them grow into leaders in STEM education design shows what is possible when you combine mentorship, research, and real-world partnership.”

What began as an FRA has become a sustained collaboration connecting Penn Engineering, Penn GSE, and the School District of Philadelphia. Through immersive technology, online course design, and community-centered research, Li, Bian, and Cottone are expanding who has access to complex science and how it is understood. And in doing so, they are reshaping how interdisciplinary STEM can be learned, designed, and shared.