As a Stanford mechanical engineering graduate student, Elizabeth Loboa worked with a craniofacial surgeon on challenges such as repairing cleft palates and separating conjoined twins. She continues to be motivated by the chance to help repair severely wounded bodies. After completing her PhD in mechanical engineering in 2002 and doing a postdoc, she headed to North Carolina, where the breadth of her understanding of mechanics, modeling, materials and regenerative biology has landed Loboa adjunct appointments in physiology, textiles and orthopedics. “Engineers do things differently from biologists,” she says. “If it’s not solving the problem, then as an an engineer, it’s not important to me. I want to do the most clinically relevant thing. I want to solve the big problems.” Email: egloboa@ncsu.edu. Web: http://www.bme.unc.edu/index.php/directory/userprofile/egloboa.