My experiences in academia and industry for the past 18 years have shaped me into a passionate scientist, engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur in Material Science and Translational Biomedical Research. With support from collaborators and lab members, I have had excellent opportunities to work on a variety of Material Engineering studies for the Dental, Maxillofacial, and Orthopedic applications, especially in Hard Tissue Reconstruction and Restoration. I also noted that my experience as an inventor (two of them are licensed to commercialize) and entrepreneurship has prepared me for the kind of interdisciplinary leadership required in teaching a diverse student body. Over the seven years at the College of Dental Medicine and Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Columbia University Medical Center, I have furthered my previous experiences. I have led the development of biogenic microenvironment scaffold for tissue-engineering, and new methodologies in resembling physiological conditions in a 3D culture to create “human skeletal organoid”. On the other hand, I have established independent research on understanding the microenvironment for osteogenesis and vasculogenesis by investigating the hypoxia inducible factor (HIF-1) gene pathway and the development of 3D culture cancer models to test chemotherapeutic agents.