People

Principal Investigator: Nitish V. Thakor, PhD

Email: nitish[at]jhu[dot]edu

Dr. Nitish Thakor is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering and at Johns Hopkins University since 1983 and National University of Singapore since 2012.  He is also the Founding Director of Singapore Institute for Neurotechnology at the National University of Singapore. His technical expertise is in the field of Neuroengineering, where he has pioneered many technologies for brain monitoring, implantable neurotechnologies, neuroprosthesis and brain-machine interface.

He has published over 400 refereed journal papers, has 17 US and international patents and co-founded 3 active companies. He was previously the Editor in Chief of IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, and currently the EIC of Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing (Springer/Nature). He is the Editor of an upcoming authoritative reference Handbook of Neuroengineering.  Prof. Thakor is a recipient of the Technical Achievement Award (Neuroengineering) as well as the Academic Career Award from the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. He received a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health and a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, Life Fellow of IEEE, Biomedical Engineering Society, and International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering. 

Graduate Students

Mark Iskarous

Mark Iskarous

BME PhD Program miskaro1[at]jhu[dot]edu

Mark is interested in developing systems that neuromorphically encode tactile stimuli as electrical stimulation patterns in order to seamlessly interface with the nervous system. He is also interested in neuromorphic computing and models of the nervous system.

Becca Greene

Becca Greene

ECE PhD Program greener[at]jhu[dot]edu

Becca works on methods for myographic signal classification and visual-tactile servicing systems. Her general research interests are robotics, brain-machine interface, and the balance of machine learning with mathematically provable control techniques.

Alexis Lowe

Alexis Lowe

BME PhD Program alowe14[at]jhmi[dot]edu

Alexis is passionate to explore materials and methods that interface the human nervous system with bioelectronic devices. Her current research focuses on implantable electrode design for peripheral nerve interfaces.

Keqin (Catherine) Ding

Keqin (Catherine) Ding

BME PhD Program kding3[at]jhu[dot]edu

Catherine is interested in the cortical responses of sensory feedback. Her current research uses EEG to study dynamic sensorimotor processing under sensory stimulation and characterize responses in chronic pain patients.

Sriramana Sankar

Sriramana Sankar

BME PhD Program ssankar6[at]jhu[dot]edu

Sri is interested in texture discrimination applications using soft prosthesis and flexible tactile sensors. The compliant nature of soft robotic fingers allows for safe and dexterous manipulation of objects in an unstructured environment.

Kiara Quinn

Kiara Quinn

BME PhD Program kquinn20[at]jhu[dot]edu

Kiara is interested in bioelectronic medicine and neuroprosthetics. She is a Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute Graduate Scholar, and her current research focuses on implantable devices for interfacing with reinnervated muscle.

Prachi Agarwal

Prachi Agarwal

ECE PhD Program pagarwa7[at]jhu[dot]edu

Current work is focused on HRV and autonomic dysfunction correlation perceiving arousal and global neurological injury. My general research interests are biomedical signal processing, machine learning and Brain machine interface.

Denis Routkevitch

Denis Routkevitch

BME MD/PhD droutke1[at]jhu[dot]edu

Denis is interested in using engineering to enhance treatment outcomes in neurosurgery. Currently, he is exploring the use of ultrasound in spinal cord injury through measurement of blood flow autoregulation and immunomodulation using focused ultrasound .

Arik Slepyan

Arik Slepyan

ECE PhD Program aslepya1[at]jhu[dot]edu

Arik is a PhD student in ECE developing scalable tactile sensing skins with wireless readouts for the prosthetic hand. His research focuses on hardware development, wireless communication, compressive sampling, and high-speed interfacing. He is also interested in microfabrication and piezoelectric sensors.

Avisha Kumar

Avisha Kumar

ECE PhD Program akumar80[at]jhu[dot]edu

Avisha is interested in optimizing focused ultrasound therapy with acoustic wave modeling and physics informed neural networks.

Max Kerensky

Max Kerensky

BME PhD Program mkerens1[at]jhu[dot]edu

Max is working to create targeted medical solutions for and at the spinal cord; he hopes to improve patient outcomes by developing new ultrasound technologies.

Pierce Perkins

Pierce Perkins

BME PhD Program pperkin4[at]jhu[dot]edu

Pierce completed undergraduate degree at Morgan State University in Chemistry concentration Biochemistry. Research includes fabrications of biocompatible flexible electrodes and focused ultrasound for cervical spinal cord injuries.

Angelica Lopez

Angelica Lopez

BME PhD Program alopez47[at]jhu[dot]edu

Angélica is interested in utilizing ultrasound technologies for spinal cord injury therapeutics. She is a NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Currently, she is exploring the impacts of focused ultrasound neuromodulation on the spinal cord.

Samuel Bello

Samuel Bello

BME PhD Program sbello2[at]jhu[dot]edu

Samuel works on neuromorphic sensory feedback systems that encode tactile stimuli for upper limb prosthesis. He is also interested in models of the nervous system and brain-machine interfaces.

InHwa (Tina) Lee

InHwa (Tina) Lee

BME PhD Program ilee18[at]jhu[dot]edu

Tina is interested in developing a virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR) based rehabilitation system for the people with upper limb loss. Her research interest are EMG-based brain-machine interface, low energy motor processing and control, and improved skill transfer of VR/AR rehabilitation system.

Alessandro Ascani Orsini

Alessandro Ascani Orsini

ECE PhD Program aascani2[at]jh[dot]edu

Alessandro is interested in designing novel implantable devices for peripheral nerve interfaces with a focus on miniaturization and materials. Currently his research has been focusing on using multimodal imaging to analyze muscle reinnervation and revascularization patterns.

Mingfeng Cao

Mingfeng Cao

BME Master's Program mcao10[at]jhu[dot]edu

I am a second-year Master's Student of BME Program who is currently working on signal processing of EEG and ERP as biomarkers for arousal and recovery of consciousness post-cardiac arrest.

Haishuo Guan

Haishuo Guan

BME Master's Program hguan19[at]jhu[dot]edu

Haishuo is interested in optical devices, with a specific focus on the development of miniature imaging systems tailored for vascular investigations. Her current research focuses on elucidating the impact of cardiac arrest on ultra-low frequency autoregulation in the resting brain.

Postdoctoral and Research Fellows

Janaka Senarathna

Janaka Senarathna

Postdoc Fellow in Radiology dmmj.senarathna[at]gmail.com

Janaka specializes in designing miniature optical imaging instruments for biomedical applications. He is currently a Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute Postdoc Scholar, and studies brain injury using the the instruments he developed.

Collaborators

(in alphabetical order)


Alumni

2020 - Present
  • Mohsen Rakhshan
  • Connor Glass
    • Before 2020
      • Anil Maybhate
      • Bo Hong
      • Cameron Mcintyre
      • Daliyang Ye
      • David Sherman
      • Hiren Modi
      • Hyunchool Shin
      • Jitendran Muthuswamy
      • Joseph Paul
      • Matthew Koenig
      • Nada Boustany
      • Phillippe Passeraub
      • Qihong Wang
      • Ramsey Kraya
      • Shanbao Tong
      • Xiaofeng Jia
      • Youngseok Choi
2021 - Present
  • Christopher Hunt
    • 2016 - 2020
      • Joseph Betthauser
      • Luke Osborn
      • Guy Hotson
      • Geoffrey Newman
      • Ryan Smith
      • Elliot Greenwald
      2011 - 2015
      • Rezina Siddique
      • Xiaoxu Kang
      • Heather Benz
      • Suneil Hosmane
      • Nan Li
      • Mohsen Mollazadeh
      • Vikram Aggarwal
      • Abhishek Rege
      2001 - 2010
      • Kartikeya Murari
      • Soumyadipta Acharya
      • Nirveek Bhattacharjee
      • Francesco Tenore
      • Jacob Volgestein
      • Yien-Che Tsai
2021 - Present
  • Jacky Tian
  • Yucheng Shen
  • Ziwei Li
  • Yinuo Zeng
  • Yunru Chen
  • Yinghe Sun
2011 - 2020
  • Avinash Sharma
  • Darshini Balamurugan
  • Harrison Nguyen
  • Teja Kerri
  • Sapna Kumar
  • Damini Aggarwal
  • Ernest So
  • Gyorgy Levay
  • Juhi Baskar
  • Robert Beaulieu
  • Hang Yu
  • Matt Masters
  • Dan Wu
  • Matt Trachtenberg
2001 - 2010
  • Brian Letzen
  • Jai Madhok
  • Alessandro Presacco
  • Gracee Agrawal
  • Girish Singhal
  • Anirudda Chatterjee
  • Yoonju Cho
  • Ander Ramos
  • Manisha Aggarwal
  • Anshu Sarje
  • Christian Sauer
  • Vikram Shirgur
  • Jaehyung Yoon
  • Jason Brooke
  • William Lau
  • Mihir Naware
  • Nelson Yang
  • Chirag Patel
  • Ming-Chieh Ding
  • Oleg Gerovichav
  • Grant Mulliken
  • Abhishek Bandyopadhyay
  • Paul George
  • Jose Hagan
  • Lee Johnson
  • Ruchika Singhal
  • Anshul Thakral
  • Damian Tomlin
  • Jeffrey Wallace
2021 - Present
  • Ruixiang Li
  • Christopher Shallal
2011 - 2020
  • Ying Ma
  • Charles Hu
2001 - 2010
  • Mitali Parmar
  • Shrivats Iyer
  • David Huberdeau
  • Helen Schwerdt
  • Suraag Patel
  • Alan Siefert
  • Yoshiaki Sono
  • Anthony Au
  • Jennifer Ferrigan
  • Chris Lee
  • Rob Rasmussen
  • Yujie Wang
  • Rajiv Mallipudi
  • Kelvin Liang
  • Kabilar Gunalan
  • Brandon O'Rourke