Ambalika Tanak is a doctoral candidate in the Bioengineering department at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her research focuses on developing rapid point-of-care biosensors enabling minimal sample volume to provide accurate diagnostic outcomes in detecting infections at an early stage. Her current interdisciplinary research focuses on understanding biomolecular interactions of host immune biomarkers for the detection of sepsis. In this regard, she has 9 peer reviewed journal publications, and has received several distinguished awards for her research. Ambalika recently won the Baxter Young Investigator Award for her work on a first-of-its-kind point-of-care sepsis biosensor, which facilitates efforts to improve medical devices and treatment that could save and support patients' lives. She plans to continue working on developing innovative medical technologies to improve healthcare outcomes.