People: Bios

Christopher Bayan

Bio:

I am a current candidate for an MS in Biomedical Engineering. I received B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, specializing in Digital Signals Processing. Previously, I worked for two medical device companies in Silicon Valley, CA. Both companies specialize in sleep apnea detection. I am currently studying and doing research in tracking collagen remodeling within an ECM utilizing non-linear imaging techniques.

Steve Boutrus

Bio:

I am a student in the EMD program - a collaborative program between the Tufts engineering and medical schools.

I joined the lab group as an electrical engineering senior in the summer of 2005, and stayed over the subsequent year to complete a M.S. in biomedical engineering. During this time in the lab, I built an in vivo flow cytometer and used it to conduct cancer research. I entered Tufts medical school in the Fall of 2006.

Steve's Website

Shamarz Firdous

Bio:

I'm indeed privileged to have become a member of this group. I am a research fellow of Pak-US research program and involved in laser tissue interaction and bio-medical imaging study. I have a M.Sc. in physics, and my Ph.D. program focuses on medical imaging.

Education:

• Ph.D.,Laser tissue interaction and wave propagation in random media, PIEAS.
• M.Sc., Physics, Peshawar university.

Research Interest:

• Laser tissue interaction and wave propagation in random media.
• Bio-medical imaging of scattering medium.
• Mueller matrix polarization imaging of turbid medium.

Cherry Greiner

Bio:

I am a PhD candidate in the Biomedical Engineering Department. I have a BS in Engineering Physics from McMaster University (in Canada, eh!). I previously worked as an Optical Engineer for JDS Uniphase and Sycamore Networks (and currently in possession of numerous priceless telecom stocks). In my spare time, I toss the discs, set up pylons, wear a toque and occasionally say "aboot". I am interested in applying optics for medical imaging and diagnostics.

Research:

Differences in cell morphology can result in differences in scattered light intensity. This is exploited by commercial flow cytometers for blood cell counting. As a non-invasive alternative, I am developing an in-vivo based flow cytometer to count circulating white blood cells and cancer cells through the detection of scattered light and fluorescence.

Sharad Gupta

Bio:

Hi, I did my PhD at IIT-Kanpur (India) and MS at IIT- Roorkee (India). My PhD thesis was focused on extraction of intrinsic fluorescence from turbid media like human tissues.

The main motivation for that work was to introduce a non-invasive/ minimally invasive technique for early diagnosis of cancer. My research interests include development and application of optical techniques for their utilization in the field of Biomedical Engineering.

Martin Hunter

Bio:

I grew up in Argentina and Brazil, came to the US for college and have been here ever since. I got my BS in Chemistry from MIT in 1987, and a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Southern California. I have always been fascinated by the science of light, and how it interacts with matter. In grad school I used lasers to study how molecules store and transfer energy when they collide with each other. I later applied that knowledge to studying the photochemistry of the atmosphere, related to ozone hole formation and global warming. More recently, I've become involved with the use of light as a diagnostic tool in medicine. For the past five years, I've worked at MIT's Spectroscopy Laboratory developing optical instruments for monitoring sugar levels in diabetics, and for detecting the onset of precancer in human epithelia. I am excited to be joining BME as the new Lab Coordinator: I look forward to contributing what I know to the students, both technically and in enthusiasm for the creative potential of science. Outside of work, I find fun and joy in my awesome family, Sierra my wife and my kids Ian (13) and Rio (2).

Peter Huang

Bio:

I am currently a postdoctoral associate working on light scattering in vivo flow cytometry.

I received my B.A. degree in physics from Cornell University and Ph.D. degree from Brown University in engineering, focusing on optics-based fluidic diagnostic techniques.

I have been a proud and loyal fan of the New York Mets since 1999 and my favorite Met is still Mike Piazza.

Derrick Hwu

Bio:

Currently I am an undergraduate student in the nine-year EMD program at Tufts.

In the past I have done research with Professor Afsar using a Backward Wave Oscillator to determine the dielectric properties of various household materials.

In the future I hope to perform more research that relates engineering to medicine such as this project on Spectroscopic Imaging.

Jonathan Levitt

Bio:

I am currently a fourth year PhD student in Biomedical Engineering. I received my BS in Computer Engineering from Wentworth Institute of Technology in 2004.

My current research is focused on developing non-invasive, optical tools and techniques to identify early stages of cancer. Specifically I am working on developing and characterizing 3-D engineered epithelial tissue structures using spatial and frequency domain analysis of multi-photon excited autofluorescence images. Other projects include the design of video-rate high resolution optical microscopes and real time non-invasive disease assessment.

Doug MacDonald

Bio:

I'm a Master of Science candidate in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. A while ago, I received two Bachelor of Science degrees from MIT – one in mathematics and the other (interdisciplinary) in learning theories of biological and man-made brains. Between then and now, I developed scientific software for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Thinking Machines Corp. and system and test software for area computer manufacturers including Digital Equipment Corp., Sun Microsystems, and more. My thesis research at Tufts will apply medical optics in novel ways to assess molecular and cellular markers of tissue change.

Claudia Mujat

Bio:

I'm currently a Postdoctoral Associate at Tufts.

I got my PhD in Optics from the School of Optics/CREOL at University of Central Florida, and actually managed to get through before any major hurricane hit. I'm interested in imaging barely diseased stuff, for early detection purposes. In my spare time, I love to read and write; and while I've yet to write the great American novel, my PhD thesis did make it on Amazon.
 

William Rice

Bio:

Bill completed his undergraduate studies in physiology at the University of Minnesota after which he moved to Boston to work at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine.

At the Wellman Center for Photomedicine Bill worked with cell and animal models of cancer, and photodynamic therapy.

Prior to attending graduate school at Tufts, Bill was at Wyeth for a brief time.

Lee Ann Stucenski

Bio:

I am a MS candidate in the Department of Biomedical Engineering here at Tufts University. I also have a BS in Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering Design from Tufts. Before starting work on my Masters Degree, I worked as an Electrical Engineer at Ionics, Inc. in Watertown, MA and also worked for a growing solar power company, Sun Power and Geothermal Energy Co., Inc., in San Rafael, CA. Presently, my work involves exploring the intrinsic auto-fluoresecent properties of human epithelial cells. Using single photon microscopy, we hope to gain further understanding of cell function in both healthy and cancer cells, by studying auto-fluoresecencing proteins.

Fenghua Tian

Bio:

Dr. Fenghua Tian is currently a research associate in biomedical optics laboratory, Bioengineering Department, the University of Texas at Arlington. His major research interests, throughout his researching experience in the University of Texas at Arlington and in the University of Pennsylvania, include: 1) the functional diffuse optical imaging (fDOI) of brain activation, specifically in diagnose and treatment of motor disorder diseases and in detection of highly cognitive activities under stress. 2) hemo-dynamic imaging for brain tumor prognosis, in order to improve the efficiency of brain radiation therapy.

Before he jointed the University of Texas at Arlington, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the Tufts University in 2005-2006, involved in the development of light-scattering based in vivo flow cytometry.

Fenghua Tian received his Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2003 from Tsinghua University, China, performing the research on noninvasive, post-operative assessment of free flap using near infrared spectroscopy. He received his B. S. degree in Biomedical Engineering in 1998 from Tsinghua University, China.

He is a member of the International Society of Optical Engineering (SPIE).

Marie Tupaj

Bio:

I am a MS candidate in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. I have a BS in Electrical Engineering and have previously worked at Sun Microsystems as a hardware design and verification engineer, Organogenesis manufacturing tissue engineered skin, Apligraf® and at Histogenics testing tissue engineered knee cartilage, NeoCart®. I am actively involved with the Society of Women Engineers, Boston working on increasing the number of young women who pursue science, technology, engineering and math related career fields. I am interested in and currently working on imaging the effects of electrical stimulation on tissue engineered scaffolds.

Joanna Xylas

Bio:

I am a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering. I received my BA in Spanish and BS in BME from Tufts in 2007. During my undergraduate education, I worked with Irene's group under a NIH grant and developed my project into a senior honors thesis. Specifically, I worked with multi-photon spectroscopy to measure the auto-fluorescence of skin cells in order to characterize the qualities of bio-engineered human 3D skin equivalents.

I have expanded my undergraduate work as a PhD candidate and my current research also includes investigation of a few commercial collagen matrices and a forced-invasion model of cancer cells in a 3D collagen environment. By working with these models, I hope to extract optical biomarkers in order to non-invasively characterize disease states of tissues in real-time and without the use of expensive or harmful dyes.