Team

Principal Investigator

Smitha Rao, PhD (MTU, LinkedIn, ResearchGate)

Teaching at Michigan Tech

Student recruitment: Currently not recruiting

Team members

Undergraduate Students

Jenna Jorns

Will Braun

Megan Owen

Graduate Students

Doctoral

Victoria Elena Santillan (Fulbright Scholar)

Shehan Wijesinghe (Co-advised by Dr. Rupali Datta, BioSci)

Rourke Sylvain (Co-advised by Dr. Yixin Liu, ChemEng)

Erican Santiago (Co-advised by Dr. Sangyoon Han, BioMed)

Vedant Buwa (Co-advisor, Advised by Dr. Marina Tanasova, ChemSci)

MS Students

Accelerated Masters

Verdict Vera (Co-advised by Dr. Yixin Liu, ChemEng)

Accelerated Masters

Will Braun

Cole Hebert

Collaborators

Dr. Rupak Rajachar, Biomedical Engineering, MTU

Dr. Marina Tanasova, Chemistry, MTU

Dr. Megan C. Frost

Dr. Caroline Gwaltney, Physical Therapy, CMU/MTU

Dr. Rupali Dutta, Biological Sciences, MTU

Elizabeth Miller, ACMAL, MTU

Dr.John Jaszczak, Physics, MTU

Dr. Sriram Malladi, ME-EM, MTU

Dr. Adrienne Minerick, ChemEng, MTU

Dr. Yixin Liu, ChemEng, MTU

External Collaborators

Dr. Borys Hrinczenko, Department of Oncology and Hematology (MSU)

Dr. Steve Durbin (Univ. of Hawaii)

Dr. Robert Makin (WMU)

Dr. Dibyendu Sarkar, (SIT)

Dr. Samerender Nagam Hanumantharao 

Dr. Amit Jaiswal (IIT, Mandi, India)

Dr. Carl Simon Jr. (NIST)

Previous Members

High School

Hannah Oommen (Houghton High School)

Rohan Sarkar, West Orange High School, West Orange, NJ, USA (Cornell University)

Onat Yapici,  Eyuboglu High School in Istanbul, Turkey

Maggie Wang, Houghton High School, Houghton, MI, USA

Cody Tuftee, Wisconsin, USA

REU Participants

Camila Padilla

Lexie Gasco (Graduate student, MTU)

Wendy Leisner

Tanner Marvets

Kathleen Pakenas (Heusser) (Stellantis Chrysler)

Christina Noel

Jaydan Crawford 

Maddie Steinhauser 

McNair Scholar

Chioma Nwabudike (2023)

MiCUP Program

Sydney Douglas (2019)

Undergraduate

Nick Arnold

Elsa Huckels

Lauren McIntyre

Maddie Steinhauser

Logan Rose

Madeline English (Graduate student, Texas A&M)

Bella Kanasty (Graduate student, MTU)

Misael Cruz (Co-op at BioMerieux)

Cheyenne Scott

Ben Agnello (Abbott)

Pavitra Attanayake (College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University)

Kat Miller

Emily Downs (nee Nelson)

Mitchell Connon (Sterile State LLC)

Abigail Martin

Carmen Muehlfeld

Garek Dyszel

Trevor Dunlap

Thomas Kirby

Matthew Colaianne

Kristine Fink

Brennan Vogl (Doctoral student, MTU, Biomedical Engineering)

Sarah Wayward

Ryan Bancroft

Joshua Geschke

Carolynn Que (Class of 2018, MTU)

Jennifer Hannon (Class of 2018. Greenheck, Schofield, WI)

Meghan Friske (Class of 2018)

Stephania Vaglica (Class of 2017)

Graduate

Nastaran Alinezhad (2016, Virginia Tech)

Praharsh Madapalli Veetil (2017, Baxter International Inc, Chicago )

Nema Taherkhani (2016, UTD)

Emma Davis (Accelerated Masters, 2018)

Noah Doyle (Accelerated Masters, 2018)

Brigitta Hammond (2018)

Suhel Shaikh (2019)

Carolynn Que (Scientist I, Immunologix Laboratories)

Stephanie Bule (R & D Biologist, Abbott Laboratories)

Alex Fetner (2021)

Samerender Nagam Hanumantharao (2020, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

Srinivas Kannan (2021, Cryosa)

Lydia Ragel-Wilson (Accelerated Masters, 2023)

Jared Martini (Accelerated Masters, 2023. PhD student, Univ. of Minnesota)

Vedant Buwa (2023, PhD student, MTU)

Enterprise Team

Spring 2023

H-STEM

Senior Design Teams

2022/23

Team 3: Design of a Method to Characterize the Depletion Mode Medical Device Battery - Phase 2

Cole Hebert

Cameron Karnosky

Kristin King

Kelsey Moyer

William Poster

Team 3 won the following award:

Design Expo 2023: Third place Senior Design, Design Expo 2023

Team 7: Body Mounted Sensors

Ben Agnello

Kelsey Harvath

Elizabeth Kaechele

Nick Niemi

Cody Tuftee

2021/22

Team 10: CDRH is looking to better understand medical device battery performance, specifically in over discharge

Stephanie Arndt

Nathaniel Broetzman

Joshua O'Laughlin

Ashley Welsh

Team 12: Fatigue/Stress Management

Alexandria Actis

Mitchell Connon

Austen Fischer

Wade Schulz

Paige Vruwink

2020/21

Team 4: Product Re-design for Anatomical Diversity

Will Ark

Kaylee Meyers

Jeremy Wales

Alana Young

Team 11: Phase VI Transcatheter Single Ventricle Device Development

Zach Miller

Skylar Pond

Shaina Royer

Erican Santiago

2019/20

Team 13: Phase V Transcatheter Single Ventricle Device

David Atkin (Validation Engineer, Cook Medical)

Kelsey LeMay (Associate Product Development Engineer, Medline ReNewal)

Gabrielle Lohrenz (Process Engineer, Intel Corporation)

Team 13 won the following award

Pavlis Honors College Husky Innovate Innovation Award 2nd Place  (Design Expo 2020)

2018/19

Team 11: Universal Driver Gear Train (co-advised)

Yolanda Anderson (Quality Engineer, Sunmed)

Heather Marker 

Ryan Connelly 

Ethan Odriscoll

Team 12: Transcatheter Single Ventricle Device

Lauren Markham

Lauren Sandy

Sonja Welch

Chad Cannon

Team 12 won the following awards:

2017/18

Team 5: Transcatheter Single Ventricle Device

Jennifer Hannon

Grace Carey

Marie Wendling

Cal Riutta

2016/17

Team 12: Posture Correction Device with Haptic Feedback for Parkinson's Disease

Hannah Marti

Dakota Anderson

Noah Doyle

Maxwell Hultquist

Team 12 won the following awards

1. Design Expo 2017: Third place-Innovation award

Team 8: Transcatheter Single Ventricle Device (co-advised)

Emma Davis

Kat Frakas

Amanda Gogola

Ami Kling

Team 8 won the following awards

2015/16

Team 5: Pressure-Volume Loop Catheter

Brigitta Hammond 

Patrick Wolfer

Mitchell Tahtinen

Sam Richards