CIMIT Fellowships
Fellowships provide promising graduate students with the opportunity to develop projects and aggregate data in preparation for more comprehensive research later in their careers. These energetic graduate students are supervised by knowledgeable, experienced mentors in nationally prominent universities, which suggests that the research they start today could lead to better patient care in the future.
Graduate Student Engineering Fellowships
Graduate Student Engineering Fellowships offer multi-year support for graduate engineering students to work in highly innovative yet classically under-funded areas of healthcare research. Medical device development, new algorithms, software for use in clinical practices, and the engineering of medical environments are all essential to accelerate the adoption of technologies into patient care.
Through the generous support of CIMIT Friends, MIT and Boston University, these Fellowships cover tuition and stipend plus $500 for travel to present at a national society meeting.
MIT
Olumuyiwa “Muyiwa” Ogunnika
Advisor: Joel Dawson, PhD
Research Intent:
The development of an integrated circuit for a handheld electrical impedance probe for the assessment of neuromuscular diseases. Electrical Impedance Myography (EIM), a new technique based on pioneering work by Dr. Seward Rutkove of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, promises a non-invasive, painless, rapid and quantitatively robust method for the initial assessment and monitoring of the progression of several prevalent neuromuscular diseases. The technique requires the application of a low-intensity, alternating current to the skin surface over the muscle group being investigated, and measurement of the resulting voltage.
Benjamin Rapoport
Advisor: Rahul Sarpeshkar, PhD
Research Intent:
To build thought-controlled (neuromotor) prosthetic limbs for paralyzed patients. He is participating in a collaboration to design, build, and test an ultra-low-power analog microelectronic system for use in neuromotor prostheses to treat severe and currently irreparable brain damage by neurosurgically implanting synthetic neural circuitry. These devices use brain-implanted electrode interfaces to extract neural signals associated with intended motion, decoding the signals into motor commands to control movement of robotic prosthetic limbs, potentially enabling a disabled person to control an artificial limb just as natural ones are controlled through thought alone. Since the meaning of neural signals differs among individuals, neural prosthetic devices must incorporate flexible algorithms capable of learning highly personalized neural codes after implantation into the brain.
Faisal Kashif
Advisor: George Verghese, PhD
Research Intent:
To greatly enhance patient care in the coming decades through the use of model-based integration, analysis, and interpretation of heterogeneous clinical data to improve clinical decision-making processes. His initial focus is on intensive care units. Although a large amount of data is currently collected in these settings, it is presented to clinicians in close to raw form. Faisal hopes to extract and present information that can more usefully and effectively support clinical decision making. His work uses the MIMIC II database being built in Prof. Roger Mark’s Laboratory for Computational Physiology in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. He also collaborates with Dr. Vera Novak of the Gerontology Service at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Boston University
Jane Yuqian Zhang
Advisor: Catherine Klapperich, PhD
Research Intent:
The development of high throughput micro/nanofluidic technology for medical diagnostics at the point of care. She is especially intrigued by the application of microfluidic technology and optical detection techniques for the high throughput screening of infectious diseases. There is an urgent need for a diagnostic device which embraces all the features needed for use in the field: accuracy, low cost production, long shelf life, and ease of transport and use. The goal is a disposable, plastic, microfluidic device that can lyse bacteria and viruses and separate nucleic acids from human samples.
Pui Leng Leong
Advisor: Elise Morgan, PhD
Research Intent:
Pui’s research interests focus on modulating cellular behavior with mechanical stimuli in order to enhance the biomechanical and biological viability of tissue-engineered cartilage and bone. She is currently investigating the role of mechanical stimuli in directing musculoskeletal tissue differentiation and regeneration. By understanding the responses of injured or diseased tissues to specific mechanical cues, she aims to identify more effective treatments for diseases such as osteoporosis and osteoarthritis, and to develop strategies for enhancing healing of tissues such as bone and cartilage.
Burkay Birant Orten
Advisor: W. Clem Karl, PhD
Research Intent:
To estimate the important physiological parameters from dynamic contrast enhanced CT images in order to assist in the diagnosis, progress monitoring and outcome prediction of disorders including, but not limited to, stroke and cancer. He is working as a part of a highly inter-disciplinary, multi-institutional team including investigators from MGH (data collection, outcomes, and clinical validation), Draper Labs (perfusion phantom development) and Boston University, focused on the development of an improved and robust algorithm for perfusion parameter estimation.