Alumna On The Cutting Edge Of Bone Research

In a recent interview with the University of Connecticut, MSE alumna Alix Deymier discussed her storied path to become a bone scientist, currently studying how bones are affected by acid-based diseases like metabolic acidosis.

Deymier graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor’s degree in MSE with a special focus on cultural heritage and art restoration. She later went to Northwestern University to work on a PhD studying bone mechanics. After graduation, Deymier worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Washington University in orthopaedic surgery.

Passionate about dance, Deymier also joined a dance company, which resulted in her falling from a trapeze and shattering bones in her shoulder. She described moving from clinical researcher to patient as "super interesting" and has since shifted her studies onto acid-based diseases like metabolic acidosis. Deymier now works as an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Connecticut, where she and her team work with the bones of mice models with induced metabolic acidosis.

“It’s so fun in science to have this element of the unexpected constantly,” Deymier said. “You have this hypothesis, it’s based on what other people have said and then it’s wrong and so you have to go in and say: ‘Ok if this theory is wrong, then what’s the right story?’ And building that story is by far my favorite part of science.”