2025 William Oxley Thompson Alumni Award

From her laboratory on the University of Maryland campus in College Park, Maryland, Hannah Zierden ‘15 is tapping her expertise in chemistry, biology and engineering to improve healthcare for mothers and their babies.

At just 32 years old, Zierden is earning national recognition for her innovative research and for developing specialized therapies to treat reproductive diseases. In June, she won the National Science Foundation’s Early Career Award, and last year, she was named the Maryland Academy of Sciences’ Outstanding Young Engineer.

“I’m excited about using my knowledge of drug delivery and cellular communication to improve health outcomes for both moms and babies,” says Zierden, whose work has focused on preventing pre-term births, supporting healthy pregnancies and engineering new therapies to treat diseases of the reproductive tract.

Zierden and her team design nanoparticles, tiny particles that carry drugs to a targeted area and release them in a controlled manner. This approach can make the drug more effective and reduce side effects, she says.

“Ohio State started me on the path to research,” Zierden says. “As an undergraduate, I thought I would work as a chemical engineer for a company making consumer products. But my professors gave me lots of opportunities to explore research as a career option. Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”

Several of her professors encouraged her to do graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland where she would have the opportunity to work in the laboratory of scientist Laura Ensign ’07 of the Center for Nanomedicine.

It was in Ensign’s laboratory that Zierden began her pioneering work in therapies to tackle the issue of pre-term births. About in 1 in 10 babies in the United States are born at least three weeks before their due date, which can jeopardize the infants’ health.

Zierden engineered a drug therapy for pre-term birth prevention in mice that won her widespread acclaim, and she hopes to develop a similar therapy for humans.

Grateful for the support she has received, Zierden strives to inspire and mentor her own students at the University of Maryland, where she is an assistant professor in the chemical and biomolecular engineering department.

And while Zierden is proud of her work, she says her biggest accomplishment is raising her two-year-old daughter, Caroline, and newborn son, Patrick, with her husband Johnathan Shininger ’15. Through motherhood, Zierden knows firsthand about the importance of good health for mothers and babies.