Dr Carola Voss studied Biology at the University of Leipzig, after which she undertook her post-graduate studies with Prof Rothen-Rutishauser at the Adolphe Merkle Institute in Fribourg, Switzerland. There, she investigated the effects of cellulose nanocrystal aerosols on a triple-cell co-culture model of the human epithelial air-blood barrier. Subsequently, she was awarded a Post.Doc Mobility Fellowship of the Swiss National Foundation to conduct research in stem cell engineering with Prof Ernst Wolvetang at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. Her goal was to study a rare form of childhood hypomyelination by using directed differentiation of patient iPSCs into oligodendrocytes. After her return to Germany in 2017 she worked as a senior scientist in the group of Dr Tobias Stöger at the Helmholtz Centre Munich. Her scientific interests drove her to engineer the alveolar barrier in vitro from either primary cells, cell lines or iPSC derived lung progeny. These cell models will help to decipher inflammatory processes from environmental triggers, study gene deficiencies on alveolar cell functionality and model cellular crosstalk in the alveolus in co-cultures in 2 and 3D. For her efforts to develop new approach methodologies to investigate mode of actions of environmental particles for respiratory health, she was accepted into the Emmy Noether program of the DFG.