Åshild Telle, BSc, MSc, PhD

Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Bioengineering

Åshild (pronunciation guide) was born and raised in Norway, in a town about two hours from Oslo. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Informatics from the University of Oslo, and also holds a Master of Science in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Melbourne. Her studies abroad in Australia introduced her to a wide range of real-world problems, and to scientific research as a trade. She went on to complete her PhD at the University of Oslo, for work undertaken at the Simula Research Laboratory. During her PhD studies, she encountered biology for the first time, learning how mathematics and scientific computing could be combined with the life sciences to explore and better understand human physiology. She developed a new mechanical cell-based model for cardiac tissue and explored various techniques and tools for analyzing the mechanical features of cardiac microtissues derived from cardiomyocyte-like cells, themselves derived from induced pluripotent stem cells.

In the CardSS Lab, she serves as a lead researcher and key technical engineer on our NIH-funded project exploring the fibrotic left atrium as a pathophysiological nexus for thrombogenesis and arrhythmogenesis. Her work involves running electromechanical simulations to explore the impact of fibrosis on atrial function, in close collaboration with clinical partners. Over the past three years, this work has led to three first-author publications: “Personalized biomechanical insights in atrial fibrillation: opportunities & challenges” (2023), “Systematic computational assessment of atrial function impairment due to fibrotic remodeling in electromechanical properties” (2025), and “Mechanical Modeling of Cardiac Fibrosis With Explicit Spatial Representation of Cellular Structure and Collagen Alignment” (2026), alongside several co-authored works. Part of her time is also dedicated to the Powers Lab, where her PhD model is applied to explore related research questions.

In her free time, Åshild is an avid traveler, coffee lover, plant enthusiast, hiker, and Instagrammer.

Education:

BSc: Mathematics and Informatics, University of Oslo
MSc: Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne
PhD: Informatics, University of Oslo

Dissertation title: “Modeling cardiac mechanics on a microscale: Mechanical modeling and analysis of cardiomyocytes and cardiac micromuscles”