SPRING 2021 E SC / E MCH 514 Schedule
Wednesdays, 15:35–16:25 hrs (via Zoom)
Coordinator: Akhlesh Lakhtakia ([email protected]) Admin Assistant: Lisa Spicer ([email protected])
Zoom link: https://psu.zoom.us/j/91823970096?pwd=ZTFvMnJCdnJSS1NZaHk2SnNGY04rdz09 Meeting ID: 918 2397 0096
Password: 841887 Date:
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Speakers:
Akhlesh Lakhtakia and Albert E. Segall
Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics
Penn State
Title: Introduction to course and related matters
____________________________________________________________________________________ Date:
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Speaker:
Nabil Simaan
Department of Mechanical Engineering Vanderbilt University
Title: Sensing, Situational Awareness Augmentation and Assistive Control for Surgical Continuum and Soft Robots
Abstract: Emerging surgical paradigms such as natural orifice surgery and minimally invasive surgery in
deep surgical sites present new challenges to surgeons and engineers. These new challenges stem from the limitations of surgeon’s sensing, perception, and incomplete situational awareness. The talk will discuss modeling, challenges and applications of continuum and soft robots for addressing these challenges in several domains of surgery. These robots range from continuum robots with force sensing and contact detection capabilities to elastomeric electrode arrays capable of traversing anatomical passageways in the inner ear. Within the context of these surgical applications, we will focus on our efforts in modeling, designing, and controlling intelligent surgical robots capable of sensing the environment and using the sensed information for task execution assistance and for situational awareness augmentation. Sample motivating applications in the areas of minimally invasive surgery of the upper airways, cochlear implant surgery, trans-urethral resection of bladder tumors, and OCT-guided retinal micro-surgery will be used to elucidate the potential of these robots.
Bio: Nabil Simaan (Ph.D, 2002 Technion, Israel) is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Computer
Science and Otolaryngology at Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN. He has served as an Editor for IEEE ICRA, associate editor for IEEE TRO, Associate Editor for ASME JMR, and editorial board member for
Robotica and a co-chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Surgical Robotics. His research interests include parallel robotics, continuum robotics and design of new robotic systems for dexterous and image-guided surgical robotics. His recent works focuses on use of intraoperative sensing for enabling complementary situational awareness in robot-assisted surgery. He was elected IEEE Fellow for contributions to dexterous continuum robotics for surgery.
Date:
Wednesday, February 3, 2021
Speaker:
David T. Allen
Department of Chemical Engineering University of Texas at Austin
Title: Increased oil and natural gas production, methane emissions and climate
Abstract: Hydrocarbon products derived from horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing of shale
formations (shale gas and shale oil) have greatly expanded US oil and natural gas production and have made the US the world’s largest natural gas and petroleum producer. Collectively, these resources have transformed North America’s energy landscape. However, the environmental impacts associated with ‘‘fracking’’ for shale gas and oil have made the process controversial. This presentation will focus on one of the environmental issues associated with shale gas and oil production: the emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Data from recent field studies will be summarized and measurements made using top-down methods (aircraft, satellites) will be compared with bottom-up measurements (direct measurements of emissions at their source). The data will be used to assess the net climate impacts of more widespread use of natural gas. Opportunities for using new sensing technologies, combined with advanced analytics, to reduce methane emissions will also be described.
Bio: Dr. David Allen is the Gertz Regents Professor of Chemical Engineering, and the Director of the
Center for Energy and Environmental Resources, at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Allen has been a lead investigator for multiple air quality measurement studies, including studies that made some of the first measurements of methane emissions from unconventional oil and gas production. He directs the Air Quality Research Program for the State of Texas, and he is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the American Chemical Society’s journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. He has served on a variety of governmental advisory panels and from 2012 to 2015 chaired the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board. In 2017, he was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Allen received his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering, with distinction, from Cornell University in 1979. His M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering were awarded by the California Institute of Technology in 1981 and 1983. He has held visiting faculty appointments at the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Date:
Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Speaker:
Douglas M. ReberNXP USA Inc. Austin, Texas
Title: An ESM life: Tales of drift, diffusion, innovation and hopefully inspiration!
Abstract: Often graduate students wonder what life experiences await them after graduation. As a case
study, this seminar will attempt detail the events leading up to the speaker’s entering ESM for his undergraduate degree and continuing on for a Ph.D. in ESM. It will cover some key patents including those from his co-op education at Delco Electronics, Penn State and with Motorola. It will review the amazing transformations in thin-film transistors and CMOS process technology going from 0.25 micron to 5 nm technology nodes over the past 20 years. Finally, it will cover excursions as an expatriate in France, as co-chair of the Green Party of Texas and in solar cell research. Ultimately, this seminar hopes to provide inspiration for current ESM graduate students.
Bio: Dr. Douglas Reber graduated with his undergraduate and doctoral degrees from Penn State in
Engineering Science and Mechanics. His work in the semiconductor industry began with Motorola in 1998 and continued with its spin-off, Freescale Inc., which is now part of NXP Inc. He is currently a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at NXP working as a design rule manual engineer covering semiconductor technology nodes from 55nm to 5nm. He was a device integration engineer in the BEOL (Back-End-Of-The-Line) copper interconnect module for Motorola’s first copper product and a
polysilicon gate integration engineer for the 90nm node. He was expatriated to France for 2.5 years and he holds more than 46 patents. He also served as the co-chair of the Travis County, Texas Green Party in 2000 and as co-chair of the Green Party of Texas from 2006 to 2008.
Date:
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
Speaker:
James M. Tour
Department of Chemistry Rice University
Title: Carbon nanotechnology
Abstract: New methods to graphene and graphene devices will be presented. This will include
laser-induced graphene for making graphene in the air at room temperature from almost any carbon
substrate, including polymers, wood, food and cotton. Also, described will be a method to make what is called “flash graphene” in bulk from any carbon source, including plastic waste, in 100 milliseconds using
no lasers, solvents or gases. The flash graphene process is being scaled to the multi-ton level. Similarly, flash routes to other new materials phases will be described.
Bio: James M. Tour, a synthetic organic chemist, is the T. T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry,
Professor of Computer Science, and Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering at Rice University. He has over 700 research publications and over 140 patent families, with an h-index of 147 and total citations of 104,000. Tour was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Centenary Prize for innovations in materials chemistry with applications in medicine and nanotechnology. He has been inducted into the National Academy of Inventors, named among “The 50 Most Influential Scientists in the World Today” by TheBestSchools.org, listed in “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” by
Thomson Reuters ScienceWatch.com, and named “Scientist of the Year” by R&D Magazine. He was
twice given the George R. Brown Award for Superior Undergraduate Teaching at Rice University.
Date:
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Speaker:
Edward Kinzel
Department of Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering University of Notre Dame
Title: Digital glass forming
Abstract: Silicate glasses have unique properties including high transparency, low temperature
sensitivity, and high chemical/electrical resistance. Additive manufacturing provides the potential to create parts with complicated geometries over low production volumes as well as opening new possibilities for diverse applications ranging from optics to integrated lab-on-a chip devices. This presentation describes ongoing work printing optically transparent glass using a new laser-heated, filament-fed process. A CO2 or CO laser is used to locally melt continuously fed, small-diameter glass rods or optical fiber. 3D shapes are constructed by moving a 4-axis CNC stage relative to the intersection of the filament and laser beam. The molten glass is controllably deformed by loading from the substrate and filament as well as surface tension. This allows the deposition of fully dense smooth geometries as well as free-standing structures. The physics of the process will be discussed along with the
presentation of low-order scaling models predicting the performance.
Bio: Edward Kinzel received his Ph.D. in ME from Purdue in 2010. His graduate work was focused on
laser-based micro/nano fabrication including Selective Laser Sintering of electronics as well as near-field direct-write nanolithography. He was a postdoc in the Infrared Systems Laboratory (UCF/UNCC) focusing on the design/application of IR antennas and their observation with NSOM. From 2012-2019 he was an Assistant Professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology. In 2019, he joined the faculty of the AME department at Notre Dame. His current research includes practical nanofabrication of metasurfaces, printing glass, and applying IR/optical antennas as sensing elements.
Date:
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
Speaker:
Feng Guo
Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering Indiana University
Title: Intelligent acoustofluidics
Abstract: Acoustofluidics harnesses sound waves and microfluidics for cell manipulation and liquid
handling at the broad interface of engineering, science, and translational medicine. For example, we developed pioneering ‘3D acoustic tweezers’ for single-cell manipulation using surface acoustic waves. This technique uses a pressure gradient to move suspended living cells in a microfluidic environment. Along with this unique contactless, label-free, and highly biocompatible manipulation, this method also offers additional advantages in ease of use, versatility, and portability. To further explore the
automation, robustness, and accuracy of our technology, we recently developed ‘intelligent
acoustofluidics’ via the fusion of machine learning with acoustofluidics systems. As proof-of-concept applications, we also demonstrated the power of these automatic systems to address challenges in translational medicine.
Bio: Feng Guo is an Assistant Professor of Intelligent Systems Engineering at Indiana University
Bloomington. He received his Ph.D. in Engineering Science and Mechanics at the Pennsylvania State University in 2015 and his postdoctoral training at Stanford University School of Medicine. From Fall 2017, Feng started his lab to develop intelligent biomedical devices and systems for fundamental research and emerging translational applications in treating cancer, autoimmune disease, and neural disorder. Feng is the recipient of the 2020 NIH New Innovator Award, Indiana CTSI GLUE Award, Stanford School of Medicine Dean’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, etc.
Date:
Wednesday, March 10, 2020
Speaker:
Julio Urbina
Department of Electrical Engineering Penn State University
Title: Radar remote sensing: From tracking free electrons to bees
Abstract: EM theory has allowed engineers and scientists to create and develop an array of
applications through the discovery of many fundamental aspects of nature. It is the pillar for current technologies encompassing the entire electromagnetic spectrum. EM applications have paved the way for the larger humanitarian impacts such as enabling space travel, communication across vast distances, security, health, and increasing access to information for people all over the world. One instrument that emerged as a practical device out of EM theory is a radar sensor. Over the years, radars have evolved from classical analog systems to the most current software-defined radar technologies in monostatic, bistatic, and multi-static deployments as well as power consumption and size miniaturization. This paper addresses in detail methods used to design conventional radar systems for classical remote sensing of targets located in the far-field of the EM sources as well as non-conventional radar systems that are needed to study targets located in the near field of EM sources.
Bio: Dr. Julio Urbina received his BSEE degree from Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria, Lima, Peru, in
1990, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois in 1996 and 2002, respectively. He has worked at Jicamarca Radio Observatory, Arecibo Observatory, and University of Arkansas. He is an Associate Professor in Penn State. His research is in electromagnetics, digital systems and space instrumentation, cognitive radars, software-defined radio, drones, harmonic radars, reconfigurable instrumentation, and radio wave propagation. In 2011, Dr. Urbina received the National Science Foundation CAREER award for his research on Cognitive Radar systems to study plasma
Date:
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
Speaker:
Thomas J. Pence
Department of Mechanical Engineering Michigan State University
Title: Soft tissue mechanics modeling based on hyperelasticity
Abstract: Mechanics thinking certainly goes way back to the earliest reasoning about how the world works. Archimedes’ law of the lever remains fundamental to all students of mechanical engineering as codified in equilibrium moment balance as learned in statics and strength of materials, and angular momentum balance as learned in dynamics. As students continue in their studies, the question of mechanical response for different types of materials assumes increasing importance. Idealized material classes are posited, response ranges are codified, and failure modes identified. This gives rise to various material theories, and those theories that seem to work well eventually make their way into the
engineer’s toolkit via, for example, finite element codes. Describing the behavior of complicated materials requires specialized tools. Living soft biological tissue is among the most complicated of materials. It is highly deformable and typically porous. It grows and remodels and is difficult to isolate as a ``free body” because, to remain healthy, it must inherently be part of an open system. This talk will focus on the role of nonlinear elasticity theory (hyperelasticity) in the mechanics modeling of soft tissue. Because of potentially large deformation, linear elasticity is limited in its ability to describe soft tissue response (although it is undeniably important for many aspects). Classical nonlinear elasticity (so called rubber elasticity) is the next logical upgrade, but it typically must be generalized in a variety of ways in order to address issues such as: inflammation (swelling), fibrous microstructure (collagen, elastin), rate effects (viscous behavior), growth and remodeling. Examples will be drawn especially from the presenter’s modeling treatments of swelling edema and collagen turnover. Organ systems that have been considered in this vein include the trachea and the cervix.
Bio: Tom Pence is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Michigan State
University which is where he earned his undergraduate degree. His graduate work in applied mechanics was at Caltech, and his postdocs were at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Paris. He has held sabbatical appointments as a visiting professor at the University of Rome and Glasgow University. His research is in continuum mechanics and nonlinear elasticity as it pertains to material modeling, with a current focus on soft biological tissue. He serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including the Journal of Elasticity, and the International Journal of Solids and Structures. He is currently serving a term as a member of the U. S. National Committee for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics.
Date:
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Speaker:
Florin Bobaru
Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering University of Nebraska at Lincoln
Title: Peridynamic models for fracture and damage in heterogeneous materials
Abstract: In this talk I will give an overview of peridynamic (nonlocal) models that have been shown to
be very useful in predicting and allowing us to better understand some complex phenomena like fracture, damage, and corrosion. Peridynamic models are particular types of nonlocal models that avoid using spatial derivatives to describe the phenomenon, and, instead, employ integrals making it easy to simulate autonomous evolution of discontinuities, such as cracks in a domain, and autonomous
localization of damage into fracture lines. I will focus on some new models for heterogeneous materials that employ nonlocality and stochasticity to predict failure in materials with microstructure, with only minimal information. Nonlocality and stochasticity, in this case, allows us to side-step costly multi-scale modeling, effectively incorporating relevant information about the microstructure and correctly predicting its role on crack growth and failure. I will discuss reasons behind the success of the
peridynamic integro-differential formulations in simulating dynamic and quasi-static brittle fracture or corrosion degradation and point out some open problems and potential future applications of
peridynamic models.
Bio: Florin Bobaru is currently Professor and Hergenrader Distinguished Scholar of Mechanical and
Materials Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He received his B.S. (1995) and M.S (1997) degrees in Mathematics and Mechanics from the University of Bucharest, Romania, and his Ph.D. (2001) degree in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Cornell University. Prof. Bobaru is one of the first contributors to peridynamic modelling of fracture and damage and served as the main editor of the “Handbook of Peridynamic Modeling” (2016). He has published extensively on peridynamic modelling of dynamic brittle fracture, fracture in composites, corrosion damage, and thermomechanical fracture. A new book on “Corrosion Damage and Corrosion-Assisted Fracture”, co-authored with Prof. Ziguang Chen and Siavash Jafarzadeh, will be published by Elsevier in 2021.
Date:
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Speaker:
William Warren
Vice President, Head of FluNXT Biotech Sanofi Pasteur
Orlando, FL
Title: What is the “And” in COVID-19?
Abstract: Schrodinger’s cat is a mind game wherein if you place a cat and
something that could kill the cat, e.g., a radioactive atom, in a box and sealed it, you would not know if the cat was dead or alive until you opened the box, so that until the box was opened, the cat was (in a sense) both "dead and alive." This was done in part to illustrate that experimentation is required to find the answer and until then both are viable. A 13th century poet, Rumi, stated, “You think because you understand “one” that you therefore understand “two” because “one and one” make two. But you forget that you must also understand and.” Have we forgotten and in our research? Are we not to test hypotheses and not just a hypothesis? The talk will have underpinnings of the diversity prediction theorem that shows that ranges (hence the and function) of ideas/models gets closer to the “truth.” The case study for the presentation will be the COVID-19 pandemic in which and is an important word, e.g., is the pandemic real and political?; are there public health and economic devastations?; is the pandemic about you and me?; are solutions to the pandemic coming from public and private
partnerships?; do pandemics past and present look strikingly similar?; what do we know and what do we not know about COVID-19?; are the spreaders and sufferers of COVID-19 the same?, why are there symptomatic and asymptomatic cases of COVID-19?; will the COVID-19 vaccine be safe and efficacious?, should we innovate vaccines and repurpose drugs? And gives us the opportunity to test hypotheses and ask, is better to be uncomfortably uncertain vs being comfortably wrong?
Bio: William Warren is a Vice President and leads a biotech unit (FluNXT) embedded within Sanofi to
accelerate and focus on Next Generation Influenza Vaccine Projects.
Prior to this, he was CEO and co-founder of VaxDesign Corporation before it was acquired by Sanofi in 2010. Warren is also a co-founder of nScrypt Inc. a company that develops and manufactures 3D printing and bioprinting systems. He directed a diverse portfolio of R&D programs as a program manager at DARPA where he helped initiate the field of bioprinting tissue engineered constructs. Warren was a Principal Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories and received his B.Sc. Honors and Ph.D. degrees in Engineering Science and Mechanics from The Pennsylvania State University (thesis advisor Prof. Patrick Lenahan).
He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, a distinguished alumni of the Pennsylvania State University, has authored over 200 referred publications, has one of the top cited papers in both the Journal of Applied Physics (top 20) and Applied Physics Letters (top 50), and over two dozen patents or patent applications. He has won several R&D awards, and several outstanding paper awards.
Date:
Wednesday, April 14, 2021
Speaker:
Durgamadhab Misra
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering New Jersey Institute of Technology
Title: Dielectric science on today’s devices
Abstract: Historically SiO2 was the main driver as the transistor gate dielectric in CMOS technology. Once the thickness of SiO2 reached the onset of direct tunneling region (<1.5 nm) HfO2 -based high-k insulators were introduced to suppress the direct-tunneling leakage current. The evolution of dielectric science in nanoelectronics will be presented. The transistor has transformed from a planar device to a three-dimensional device to a gate all around device. Several applications of high-k dielectrics have emerged including ferroelectric FETs and resistive random-access memory (ReRAM) devices that are being investigated for possible implementation of artificial intelligence hardware. The electrical performance in these devices depends on the dielectric deposition process, precise selection of deposition parameters, pre-deposition surface treatments and subsequent thermal budget. By doping HfO2 with ZrO2 and modifying the structural phase provides higher dielectric constant than the standard amorphous or monoclinic phase. By considering the interface reaction kinetics and thermal budget various atomic layer deposition (ALD) schemes were identified to get a stable dielectric with a robust interface. The deposition of Hf1-xZrxO2 on both silicon and germanium, a higher mobility channel material, will be discussed. The reliability characterization of these dialectics based on dielectric-semiconductor interface will also be discussed. Furthermore, the switching mechanism in transition metal oxides like HfO2 in ReRAM devices, where a conducting filament path is formed due to oxygen vacancy transition/formation, will also be discussed.
Bio: Prof. Durga Misra is a Professor in the ECE Department at New Jersey Institute of Technology. His
research interests are in the areas of nanometer CMOS gate stacks and device reliability. He is Fellow of IEEE and is a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE EDS. He is, also, a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society (ECS). He received the Thomas Collinan Award from the DS&T Division and the EPD Divisional Award from ECS. He has edited more than 45 books and conference proceedings and published more than 200 technical articles in peer reviewed Journals and in International Conference proceedings. He received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, in 1985 and 1988, respectively.
Date:
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Speaker:
Fabio Semperlotti
School of Mechanical Engineering Purdue University
Title: Topological Elastic Waveguides: exploring analogue quantum mechanical effects to tailor wave propagation in classical elastic waveguides.
Abstract: Inspired by recent discoveries of topological phases of matter in quantum physics, there has
been a rapidly growing research effort to uncover analogue mechanisms in classical wave physics, including acoustics and elastodynamics. By acting on either time reversal symmetry or parity, material systems obeying the laws of classical mechanics were endowed with dispersion properties reminiscent of selected quantum mechanical systems. Among the many remarkable characteristics of these
materials, their ability to support unidirectional propagating waves is particularly significant and it could serve as the foundational property to achieve robust waveguides even in presence of disorder and defects. This talk will review recent efforts to design, develop, and experimentally validate continuous and load-bearing phononic structural waveguides capable of unidirectional elastic guided modes along the walls of topologically distinct domains. More specifically, designs that behave as analogue of the quantum valley Hall and the quantum spin Hall systems will be discussed. A combination of theoretical, numerical, and experimental results will be used to illustrate how unidirectional propagating guided modes can be achieved at the interface between elastic material phases having different topological order. These so-called edge states are topologically protected against backscattering, hence allowing efficient elastic energy transmission even in presence of defects and disorder. Such unique propagation properties could have a profound impact on the development of many real-world applications and on the performance of practical devices whose operating mechanism is rooted in the physics of acoustic and elastic waves.
Bio: Dr. Fabio Semperlotti is an Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue
University and holds a courtesy appointment in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering. He received a M.S. in Aerospace Engineering (2000), and a M.S. in Astronautic Engineering (2002) both from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” (Italy), and a Ph.D. in Aerospace engineering (2009) from the Pennsylvania State University (USA). Prior to joining Penn State, Dr. Semperlotti served as a structural engineer for a few European aerospace industries, including the French Space Agency (CNES), working on the structural design of space launch systems (such as Ariane 5 and Vega) and satellite platforms. He is a member of the Ray W. Herrick laboratory and directs the Structural Health Monitoring and Dynamics laboratory (SHMD) where he conducts, together with his research group, research on several aspects of structures and materials including structural dynamics and wave propagation, elastic metamaterials, structural health monitoring, and computational mechanics. His research has received funding from a variety of sources including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the
Department of Energy, and industrial sponsors. Dr. Semperlotti was also the recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award (2015), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program (YIP) (2015), the DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA) 2019, and the ASME C.D. Mote Jr. Early Career Award 2019.
Date:
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Speaker:
Erin Purcell
Department of Biomedical Engineering Michigan State University
Title: Structural and functional remodeling surrounding electrodes implanted in the brain
Abstract: By stimulating or recording electrical activity, microelectrode arrays implanted in the brain
have created a renaissance in the treatment of neurological diseases and injuries. Likewise, these devices are an enabling technology to understand normal brain function and behavior. However, questions remain regarding the relationship between the biological response to implanted electrodes, their chronic performance, and features of their design. It is my lab’s goal to understand the basic science underlying the interaction between implanted electrodes and brain cells, and to provide guiding principles to improve device design and performance as a result. Recently, we have found novel effects of implanted silicon and polyimide-based electrode arrays on the structure and function of local
neurons, including alterations in ion channel expression, synaptic transporter expression, dendritic spine density, and excitability. Results of quantitative immunohistochemistry demonstrate a progressive local increase in the expression of potassium ion channels and inhibitory transporters surrounding devices implanted in the brains of rats over time, indicating a potential shift toward hypoexcitability over the 6-week time course studied. Two-photon laser scanning microscopy in brain slice preparations revealed profound local spine loss surrounding implants, coupled with observations of reduced responsiveness to injected current during whole cell intracellular recordings, where preliminary observations indicate pronounced effects surrounding traditional silicon-based devices. More recently, RNA-sequencing has complemented our understanding of these observed plasticity effects, where a current goal is to characterize molecular identity and function of neurons and non-neurons surrounding implanted electrodes. Our results suggest a novel role of local plasticity surrounding devices in chronic signal loss and instability, and we are currently working to assess and perturb local gene expression to reveal potential underlying mechanisms.
Bio: Dr. Erin Purcell received her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Michigan
Technological University in 2001. She earned her doctoral degree in 2008 under the guidance of Dr. Daryl Kipke at the University of Michigan, where her work focused on developing ways to improve the integration of neural implants with the surrounding brain tissue. Following graduation, Erin joined the Kresge Hearing Research Institute as a Research Fellow in Dr. Keith Duncan's laboratory at the University of Michigan, where she trained in intracellular (patch clamp) neural recordings. Erin joined the faculty at Michigan State University in 2014 and was tenured as an associate professor in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Biomedical Engineering in 2020. As the P.I. of the Regenerative Electrode Interface Lab, Dr. Purcell is pursuing new approaches to characterize, modulate, and
regenerate neuronal responses at the interface of electrodes implanted in the brain. The lab is funded by two NIH R01 awards and an NSF CAREER award.
