Lab meeting

Current Lab Members

Faculty

Suresh M.L. Raghavan, Ph.D

Dr.  Suresh M.L. Raghavan is Professor of Biomedical Engineering at University of Iowa. Dr. Raghavan is a Fulbright Distinguished Chair, a  Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from University of Pittsburgh and the 2020 recipient of the University of Iowa President and Provost  Award for Teaching Excellence. He teaches and conducts NIH-, NSF-, and AHA-funded research in cardiovascular, neurosurgical, pulmonary, and critical care devices and diseases in his BioMOST lab where he mentors students and medical trainees. Suresh enjoys biking, badminton, and theatre.

 

Graduate Researchers

Marco A. Nino

Marco is a Ph.D. candidate in Biomedical Engineering and a Carver graduate fellow. He is studying and developing a novel electrochemical catheter for cardiac output monitoring using experimental blood pulse duplicating flow loops. Previously, during his BSE in biomedical engineering from the University of Iowa, he also worked in the Geerling lab studying the structure and connections in the brain. He is a member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) University of Iowa Graduate Committee. In his free time, Marco likes to watch documentaries, listen to oldies, and play basketball.

Adam E. Galloy

Adam is a Ph.D. candidate in Biomedical Engineering and a graduate research assistant. He is currently studying lung biomechanics - specifically, the use of image processing and computational nonlinear elasticity to understand and characterize lung motion during breathing. Adam has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Dordt University where he was the founder and president of the Full STEAM Ahead club. 

Medical Fellows

Dr. Aravinth Jawahar, MBBS

Aravinth is a Pediatric Critical Care Fellow at the Stead Family Children’s Hospital, University of Iowa and a research fellow at the BioMOST lab. He obtained his medical degree from medical school at Theni Government Medical College in Theni, India, and completed a residency at the BronxCare Health System in Bronx, New York. At the BioMOST lab, he is studying blood flow in the heart-lung machine (or Extra Carporeal Membrane Oxygenation - ECMO) circuit in order to identify an early indicator of oxygenator obstruction that will improve how patients on ECMO are monitored.

Undergraduate Researchers

Ryan Langstraat

Ryan is a BS candidate in Biomedical Engineering. At the BioMOST lab, he is helping to develop an electrochemical technique to measure cardiac output as well as a automated meshing pipeline to create subject models for finite element analysis (FEA).

Lab alumni

Ph.D. Alumni

  • Dr. Srivats Sarathy, 2015-2020, studied how blood flow monitoring can improve care of patients on extracarporeal membrane oxygenator (also called ECMO or the heart-lung machine). He also studied a novel biomaterial for his MS thesis. During his Ph.D. studies, Srivats won the 2018 Baxter Young Investigator Award, given to top graduate students or post doctoral fellows world-wide studying critical care therapies. He also won the 2020 University of Iowa outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. Now: Research and Development Scientist, Medical 21, Inc.
  • Dr. Timothy Chung, May 2012 – July 2017, developed a novel testing method and apparatus for studying multiaxial failure properties of biological soft tissues for his Ph.D thesis. He also studied and reported on the rupture characteristics of abdominal aortic aneurysms for his MS thesis; Now: Research Assistant Professor, Swanson School of Engineering, University of Pittsburgh
  • Dr. Anna (Hoppe) Schumacher, August 2010 – May 2017, developed an anti-thrombotic coating for brain aneurysm flow diverters. She also developed novel image processing algorithms to study the causes of recurrence in coil-embolized brain aneurysms; Now: Principal Regulatory Affairs Associate, Vascular and Endovascular Devices Regulatory/Product Development, Terumo Aortic; Past: Regulatory Strategy Associate · ‎Syntactx Inc.; Biomedical Engineer/Lead Reviewer, Vascular and Endovascular Devices, US Food and Drug Administration 
  • Dr. Ben Berkowitz, May 2012 – Dec 2016, developed novel computational geometry methods and algorithms for quantifying brain aneurysms in large patient populations. During graduate studies, Ben co-founded Voxello Inc., a medical device startup and served as its Product Development Director. Ben went on to become a Stanford Biodesign Fellow after his Ph.D; Now: Senior R&D Engineer, Imperative Care, Inc.; Past: Medical Device Consultant and Co-founder & Product Development Director, Voxello Inc.
  • Dr. Chaid Schwarz, May 2012 – May 2016, developed a novel biomaterial for cardiovascular applications. The technology he developed was licensed to Minneapolis Cardiac Device Startup founded by legendary entrepreneur, Dr. Manny Villafana (Founder, St. Jude Medical), Medical 21, Inc.. Chaid also developed novel test methods for studying the mechanics of aortic stent grafts for his M.S. thesis; Now: Head of R&D, Medical 21 Inc.
  • Dr. Rohini Retarekar, August 2008 – Dec 2012, Cerebral aneurysm hemodynamics; Now: Senior Staff Fellow, Vascular and Endovascular Devices, US Food and Drug Administration; Past: R&D Engineer, Microvention Inc.
  • Dr. Ryan Amelon, August 2008 – July 2012, Pulmonary biomechanics; Now: Director of Artificial Intelligence, Smile Direct Club, Inc.; Past: VP for Research, IDx Inc.
  • Dr. Manasi (Ramachandran) Reardon, August 2007 – May 2012, Cerebral aneurysm geometric and tissue mechanics modeling; Now: Head of Advanced Development, Abbot Neuromodulation and Stanford Biodesign Fellow; Past: Design Engineer, ev3 Inc.
  • Dr. Kathleen Lin, August 2007 – May 2012, Endovascular graft design; Now: External Innovation Search and Evaluation Lead, Eli Lily and Company; Past: Design engineer, Med Institute, Cook medical Corp.
  • Dr. Jarin Kratzberg, August 2002 – August 2008, Design of endovascular graft; Now: Head, Vascular Research Group, Cook Medical Corp
  • Dr. Baoshun Ma, August 2000 – Spring 2004, Computational geometry, fluid, and solid mechanics modeling of cerebral aneurysm; Graduated Dec 2004; Now: Information Technology Analyst; Past: Research Scientist, University of Vermont

MS Alumni

  • Joseph Kim, March 2017 - May 2020, Designing a machine learning model to evaluate feature importance of biomechanical properties of human soft tissue samples. Now: Subcontractor at Lincoln Laboratory, MIT
  • Didier Gossiho, January 2019 – January 2021, Investigation of discrepancy in in the uniaxial versus biaxial biaxial response of the abdominal aortic aneurysm tissue. Now: Design Quality Assurance Engineer, Boston Scientific.
  • Chenyang Xiao, September 2018 – December 2019: Novel elastography technique; Now: Design Engineer, Boston Scientific Corp
  • Srivats Sarathy, August 2015 – July 2016: Prosthetic heart valve development; Now: Ph.D. candidate
  • Nasibeh Hassanlou, May 2014 – August 2016: "Vascular networks modeling".
  • Benjamin Dickerhoff, August 2011 – August 2013: "Heart Valve prosthesis design"; now: R&D  Engineer, Bausch and Lomb Corp
  • Timothy Chung, January 2011 – July 2013: "Heterogeneous Finite Element Stress Analysis of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms : Comparison Between Ruptured and Unruptured Lesions"; now: Research Engineer, University of Pittsburgh
  • Benjamin Berkowitz, August 2010 – December 2012: "Development and demonstration of an automated method for deriving novel morphometric indices of cerebral aneurysms"; Now: Medical Device Consultant and Stanford Biodesign Fellow
  • Chaid Schwarz, August 2010 – December 2012: "Modeling of the radial compressive properties of an aortic stent graft". Now: Chief Biomaterials Scientist, Medical 21 Inc.
  • Gaurav Sharda, January 2010 – December 2011: "Cerebral aneurysm morphometrics from 2D biplane angiograms"; Now: Director, Workday Operations and Process Improvement at Life Time - Healthy Way of Life
  • David Welch, August 2008 – Feb 2011, Cerebral aneurysm imaging and reconstruction; Graduated Feb 2011; Now: Senior DevOps Engineer at Bayer Crop Science
  • Amanda Fedler, August 2006 – August 2008, Swallowing biomechanics; graduated Fall 08; Now: Senior Principal Engineer at Cardiac Science; Past: Engineer, Baxter Healthcare Corp.
  • Setu Trivedi, Spring 2004 – Spring 2006, Modeling of type-II endoleak in abdominal aortic aneurysm; graduated Spring 2006; Now: Medical Director of Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at Aurora Health Care, Minneapolis, MN
  • Patricia Walker, Spring 2001 – Spring 2003, Development of in vitro aneurysm, Now: Director, Global SQE Transfer/Acquisitions, Medtronic, Inc. Past: Senior Design Quality Engineering Manager, Medtronic Inc.; Engineer, Catheter and Disposables Technology, Inc., Plymouth, MN

Post Doctoral Alumni

  • Dr. Shruti Patel, MBBS, (2019-2022) was was a Pediatric Critical Care Fellow at the Stead Family Children’s Hospital, University of Iowa and a research fellow at the BioMOST lab. He obtained his medical degree from Government Medical College, Bhavnagar, India and residency at Harlem Hospital affiliated with Columbia University, New York, N.Y. For her research, she investigated a novel and safer way for performing CPR on infants - the Open palm technique and compared it to standard techniques.
  • Dr. Niranjan Vijayakumar, MBBS (2018-2021)
    was a Pediatric Critical Care Fellow at the Stead Family Children’s Hospital, University of Iowa and a research fellow at the BioMOST lab. He obtained his medical degree from Mohan Kumaramangalam Medical College, Salem, India. Ninja completed his residency from the South Bronx, New York in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai. At the BioMOST lab, he   conducted flow experiments to understand the fluid mechanics during flushing of arterial  lines in the pediatric ICU and developed a safe protocol that minimizes the pressure elevations in pediatric ICU patients. He is currently pursuing pediatric fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital and teaches at Harvard Medical School.
  • Dr. Omar Abu-Anza, MD (2018-2021)
    was a Pediatric Cardiology Fellow at the Stead Family Children’s Hospital, University of Iowa and a research fellow at the BioMOST lab. Omar obtained his medical degree from Cairo University, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo and completed his residency in Cardiology from University at Buffalo, Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, Buffalo, N.Y. At the BioMOST lab, Omar is studying the causes of discrepancy in doppler estimated pressure gradients compared to catheter-based measurements after stent repair of coarctation of aorta. He is currently a pediatric cardiologist at Oklahoma Children's Hospital, Oklahoma University Health Heart Center.
  • Dr. Daichi Nakagawa, MD (August 2016 – 2018): As a visiting neurosurgeon from University of Tokyo. Daichi conducted fellowship research under combined guidance of Drs. Hasan and Raghavan on the imaging and hemodynamics of brain aneurysms. Currently, Neurosurgeon at Tokyo Kosei Nenkin Hospital, Japan
  • Dr. Aditya Badheka, MD (January 2013 – 2016): As a pediatric critical care fellow, Aditya conducted his fellowship research under Dr. Raghavan's guidance on the efficacy of flow monitoring during extracarporeal life support. Currently, Medical Director, of Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinic. 
  • Dr. Govinda Paudel, MD (October 2012 – 2015): As a pediatric cardiology fellow, Govinda conducted his fellowship research under Dr. Raghavan's guidance on branch pulmonary artery regurgitation and its association with pulmonary vascular resistance after tetralogy of fallot repair in pediatric subjects. Currently, Assistant PRofessor
  • Dr. Alexander Nadareshvili, Ph.D. (August 2010 – July 2011): Alexander was a post doctoral scholar under Dr. Raghavan and Hasan's guidance on the study of coi-embolized brain aneurysms 

BS Alumni

  • Pareen Mhatre: Heart-rate variability monitoring (2019-present)
  • Joseph Kim, Machine Learning algorithm for interpretation of biological tissue tensile test curves (2018-present)
  • Chenyang Xiao, Biomaterials testing (2017-2019)
  • Brett Austin, Biological soft tissue testing (Spring 2017-Spring 2018)
  • Elizabeth Niedert, Mechanical characterization of flow diverters for brain aneurysms (2017-2018)
  • Mitch Muller, Summer Intern, ECMO research (Summer 2017)
  • Justin John, Vessel reconstruction from biplane angiogram. (Fall 2013 - Spring 2015).
  • Eric Dinges, Mechanics of arterial blowout. (Fall 2013 - Spring 2014).
  • Kevin Johnson, Brain aneurysm virtual interface. (Spring 2012 - Spring 2014).
  • Abigail Higgins, Quantification of recurrence in coil embolized aneurysms. (Spring 2013).
  • Kevin SImoens, Quantification of recurrence in coil embolized aneurysms. (Spring 2013).
  • Tatiana Correa, Intracranial CT, MR, Angio Image Processing. (Spring 2010 - Spring 2013).
  • Steve Lin, Intracranial CT, MR, Angio Image Processing. (Fall 2010 - Fall 2012).
  • Anthony Melchiorri, Study of Septal Occluders. (Spring 2009 - Spring 2012).
  • Andrew Jennings, Design of a computer-controlled mechanical test apparatus. (Spring 2010 - Fall 2011).
  • Maryam Bakare, June 2011-Aug 2011, User sensitivity in image reconstructions
  • Steve Lin, Aug 2010-present, 3D image analysis of brain aneurysms
  • Rachel Williams, Oct 2010-May 2011, Study of endovascular graft folding
  • Andrew Jennings, Apr 2010-present, Design of a computerized planar radial extension tester
  • Natalia Cardona, Apr 10-May 10, Septal occluder design
  • Tatiana Correa, Feb 10-2015, 3D image analysis of brain aneurysms
  • Anthony Melchuri, Nov 2009 – present, Design of cardiac septal occluders
  • Benjamin Berkowitz, Jul 2007 – present, Three-dimensional geometric modeling
  • Lisandra Colon, Jun 2005 – Aug 2005, Compliance and strength of arteries, Summer research opportunity internship award
  • Ephraim I Ben-Abraham, Oct 2004 – present, Compliance test apparatus design    
  • Lisa Dorado, Fall 2004 – present, CAD modeling of brain aneurysms, IBA diversity scholarship
  • Roshni Parikh, Fall 03 – present, Vascular plasticity
  • Setu Trivedi, Spring  02- present, Residual stress in arteries
  • Chiraag Dharia, Spring 02 – Fall 03, Histochemical quantification of arteries, 
  • Frank Bohnenkamp, Fall 02 – Spring 03, Experimental evaluation of aneurysm sounds, Senior design project
  • Bradford Conlan, Fall 02 – Spring 03, Experimental evaluation of aneurysm sounds, Senior design project
  • Jessica Keil, Fall 02 – Spring 03, Experimental evaluation of aneurysm sounds, Senior design project
  • Elizabeth Rikkers, Spring 2001 – Fall 02, Aneurysm Biomechanics research, mechanical testing and programming, 
  • Kristina Larson, Fall 01 – Spring 02, Senior design project: Fabrication of a synthetic replica of thrombus filled aneurysm prototype, 
  • Scott Greifzu, Summer 01 - Spring 02, Senior design project: Fabrication of a synthetic replica of thrombus filled aneurysm prototype, 
  • Brooke Hingtgen, Fall 00 – Fall 01, Thermal stress in cryopreserved tissues, 
  • Jay A. Dittman, Fall 00 – Spring 01, Senior Design Project: Fabrication of realistic deformable synthetic aneurysm models, 2nd prize, Senior Design Project competition, May 2001