Alumni

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Doctoral Graduates

Cameron C. McIntyre, August 1997- May 2001

Ph.D. Awarded August, 2001, “Model-based design of CNS neural prosthetic interfaces”.

Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC.

Michael C. Moffitt, August 1998-May 2004

M.S. Awarded May, 2000, “Localization of current sources in cylindrical volume conductors”.

Ph.D. Awarded May, 2004 “Functional imaging of the mammalian spinal cord”

R&D Director, Neuromodulation Research and Advanced Concepts, Boston Scientific, Valencia, CA.

Dongchul Lee, August 2000-August 2004

Ph.D. Awarded August, 2004 “Structure-function relationships in extracellular stimulation of CNS neurons”.

Director of Theoretical Research, Nevro Corp, Menlo Park, CA.

Xuefeng F. Wei, August 2001-May 2009

M.S. Awarded August 2004, “Current density and impedance analysis of banded deep brain stimulating electrodes”.

Ph.D. Awarded May, 2009 “Analysis and design of electrodes for deep brain stimulation”

Associate Professor, The College of New Jersey

Joseph W. Boggs, August 2001-August 2005

M.S. Awarded May, 2003, “Bladder pressures evoked by electrical stimulation of the deep perineal nerve”.

Ph.D. Awarded August 2005, “Stimulation of the pudendal nerve for restoration of bladder function”

Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President, SPR Therapeutics, Cleveland, OH.

Brian J. Wenzel, September 2001-August 2005

M.S. Awarded May, 2003, “Detection of hyper-reflexive bladder contractions from recordings of external anal sphincter activity”.

Ph.D. Awarded August 2005, “Closed-loop electrical control of urinary continence”

Senior Manager Design Assurance, Advanced Bionics/Sonova, Sylmar, CA.

Alexis Kuncel, January 2002-August 2007

M.S. Awarded May, 2003, “Optimization of stimulus parameters for treatment of movement disorders with deep brain stimulation: Experimental design for exploration of the parameter space”.

Ph.D. Awarded August 2007, “Analysis of stimulus parameters for thalamic deep brain stimulation”

Clinical Project Manager, SPR Therapeutics, Cleveland, OH.

Merrill J. Birdno, August 2004-July 2009

Ph.D. Awarded August, 2009, “Analyzing the mechanisms of thalamic deep brain stimulation: computational and clinical studies”.

Product Specialist, W. L. Gore & Associates, Flagstaff, AZ.

John Woock, August 2005-December 2009

Ph.D. Awarded May, 2010, “Control of bladder function by electrical stimulation of pudendal afferents”.

Chief Marketing Officer, Axonics Modulation Technologies, Inc., Los Angeles, CA.

Amorn Wongsarnpigoon, August 2005-May 2011

Ph.D. Awarded May, 2011, “Computational modeling of epidural cortical stimulation: design, analysis,

and experimental evaluation”.

Sr. Manager of Research and Development, SPR Therapeutics, LLC, Cleveland, OH.

Yuerosa (Rosa) Qi So, August 2007-May 2012

Ph.D. Awarded May, 2012, “Mechanisms of deep brain stimulation for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease: evidence from experimental and computational studies”.

Division Head of Healthcare and Medtech Division, Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore.

Alexander R. Kent, January 2008-September, 2013

Ph.D. Awarded December, 2013, “Characterization of evoked potentials during deep brain stimulation in the thalamus”.

Director, Applied Research, Cala Health, Burlingame, CA.

Bryan R. Howell, August 2009-January 2015

Ph.D. Awarded May, 2015, “Design of electrodes for efficient and selective electrical stimulation of nervous tissue”.

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC.

David Brocker, August 2009-January 2015

Ph.D. Awarded May, 2015, “Improved efficacy and efficiency of non-regular temporal patterns of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease”.

Principal, Dean and Company, Vienna, VA.

Meredith J. McGee, June 2009-February 2015

Ph.D. Awarded May, 2015, "Effects and mechanisms of patterned electrical stimulation of pudendal afferents for bladder control".

Manager of R&D, SPR Therapeutics, LLC, Cleveland, OH.

Tianhe “Cheng” Zhang, August 2009-March 2015

Ph.D. Awarded May, 2015, "Model based optimization of spinal cord stimulation".

Principal Scientist, Neuromodulation Research and Advanced Concepts, Boston Scientific, Valencia, CA.

Leonel Medina, July 2012-May, 2016

Ph.D. Awarded August, 2016, “Quantitative analysis of kilohertz-frequency neurostimulation”.

Assistant Professor, Department of Informatics, Universidad de Santiago, Chile.

Christina Behrend, January 2012-May 2017

Ph.D. Awarded August, 2017, “Uncovering the neural basis for bradykinesia in Parkinson’s disease: causality of beta-frequency oscillations”.

Medical Resident, University of Pennsylvania Hospital.

Nikki Pelot, Ph.D. Student, August 2012-June 2019

Ph.D. Awarded August, 2019, “Quantifying the effects of kilohertz frequency electrical signals on small autonomic nerve fibers: computational modeling and in vivo electrophysiology”.

Research Director, Duke University

Isaac Cassar, Ph.D. Student, August 2015-June 2021

Ph.D. Awarded June, 2021, “Cortical Evoked Potential as a Biomarker for Deep Brain Stimulation”.

Lead Neuroengineer, iota Biosciences, Alameda, CA.

Aman Aberra, Ph.D. Student, August 2015-June 2021

Ph.D. Awarded June, 2021, “Multi-scale modeling for analysis and design of transcranial electric and magnetic brain stimulation”.

Neukom Postdoctoral Fellow, The Neukom Institute for Computational Science, Dartmouth University.

John Gilbert, Ph.D. Student, August 2016-December 2021

Ph.D. Awarded December, 2021, “Spatiotemporal Approaches to Increase the Efficacy of Spinal Cord Stimulation”.

Research Project Manager, SPR Therapeutics, Chapel Hill, NC.

Will Huffman, Ph.D. Student

Ph.D. Awarded November, 2022, "Engineering Solutions for Vagus Nerve Stimulation to Minimize Invasiveness and Reduce Side Effects"

Research Engineer, SPR Therapeutics, Chapel Hill, NC.

Nathan Titus, Ph.D. Student, September 2015-December 2022

Ph.D. Awarded December, 2022, "Investigating Potential Mechanisms of Subperception Spinal Cord Stimulation".

Post-Doctoral Mentoring

Alan “Chuck” Dorval
2004-2009, Associate Professor of Bioengineering, University of Utah.
Paul Yoo
2004-2010, Associate Professor, University of Toronto. Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at EBT Medical, Toronta, Canada.
Andre Snellings
2006-2011, Senior Writer, ESPN.
Alexis Kuncel
2007-2010, Clinical Project Manager, SPR Therapeutics.
George McConnell
2008-2015, Assistant Professor, Stevens Institute of Technology.
Jeremy Bamford
2010-2011, Clinical Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA.
Zachary Danziger
2011-2016, Assistant Professor, Florida International University, Miami, FL.
Chintan Oza
2013-2016, Director - Corporate Strategy at Merck, New York, NY.
Nathan Crosby
2014-2016, Manager of Research and Development, PR Therapeutics, Durham, NC.
Jim Hokanson
2014-2020, Assistant Professor, Medical College of Wisconsin.
Su-Wei Kuo
2018-2021

Casey Steadman
2019-2022
Atefeh Ghazavi
2020-2022

M.Eng.

Jiashu Li
M.Eng. Awarded December 2015
Manager Real World Evidence at AtriCure, Inc. Minneapolis, MN.

Derek Schulte
M.Eng. Awarded December 2016
Senior Field Clinical Manager at NeuroPace, Seattle, WA

David Catherall
M.Eng. Awarded December 2017
MD Candidate at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO.

Tim Hoer
M.Eng. Awarded December 2019
Fuel Cell System Engineer at General Motors, Detroit, MI.

Eric Musselman
M.Eng. Awarded May 2020
PhD Candidate in Biomedical Engineering at Duke University, Durham, NC.

M.S.

Scott Humbert, August 1998 - January 2000

M.S. Awarded January 2000, “Evaluation of command-control algorithms for upper extremity prostheses” (Thesis).

Matt Swift, August 2000 - January 2004

M.S. Awarded January 2004, “Field-enhanced diffusion of lipophilic dyes in human peripheral nerve” (Thesis).

Matthew Schiefer, September 2001 - May 2003

M.S. Awarded May 2003, “A model of excitation sites during epiretinal electrical stimulation” (Thesis).

Ankit Bhargava, M.S. Student, January 2005-June 2005. Withdrawn.

Eric Horvath, August 2006 - May 2008

M.S. Awarded May 2008, “Closed-loop control of urinary continence in persons with spinal cord injury via electrical stimulation of the dorsal genital nerve” (Thesis).

Aurora Hill, January 2007 - December 2007

M.S. Thesis “Analysis of excitation patterns from regional anesthesia needles” (Project).

Jerel Mueller, August 2008 - May 2010

M.S. Thesis “Model-based analysis of virtual phosphene generation in an epiretinal visual prosthesis”.

Mark Castoro, December 2008 - May 2010

M.S. Thesis “Excitation properties of the right cervical vagus nerve in adult dog”

Haoran Liu, May 2011 – May 2013

M.S. Thesis “Phasic activation of the external urethral sphincter increases voiding efficiency”

Karthik Kumaravelu, January 2013 – December 2014.

M.S. Thesis “Network effect of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease – a computational modeling study”.

Amitha Gade - 2016
M.S. Thesis “Dual Frequency Spinal Cord Stimulation to Treat Chronic Pain”.

Yi Zhao, January 2018 – May 2019

M.S. Thesis “Modeling effects of deep brain stimulation on theta-oscillatory activity in the thalamus”.

Kelli Hancock, September 2018 – September 2021

M.S. Thesis (Preliminary Exam)

Adalberto Machin, September 2021 - December 2022

M.S. Project "Effect of deep brain stimulation on the peak-trough symmetry of beta oscillations in the subthalamic nuclei and globus pallidus internus of participants with Parkinson’s Disease"

Jake Javier, October 2021- December 2022

M.S. Project "The effect of spinal cord stimulation on bladder function in rat subjects"

Shane Beyer, February 2022 - December 2022

M.S. Project "Computational Modeling of Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Improved Epilepsy Treatment"

Rocio Rodriguez

Undergraduate

Courtney Olmsted
Pratt Felow, January, 2005 - April, 2006
Meredith Cantrell
January, 2005 - May, 2006
Justin Hilliard
Pratt Fellow, January, 2006 - May 2007
Cyrus Amoozegar
March, 2006 - November, 2006
Shams Kazmi
Pratt Fellow, January, 2007 - May 2008
Werapong “Joe” Goo
August, 2007 - May, 2008
Tianhe “Cheng” Zhang
August, 2007 - May, 2009
Best Undergraduate Paper Award, 25th Southern Biomedical Engineering Conference
Whitney Stewart
Pratt Fellow, January, 2008 - May, 2009
Patrick Ye
August, 2008 – May, 2010
Neil Panjwani
August, 2008 - December, 2009
James Zhang
Pratt Fellow, January, 2009 - May, 2010
Katy Millay
May, 2009 - August, 2009
Auriel August
Howard Hughes Research Program, May, 2009 - August, 2019
September, 2009 – May, 2012
Dongwoon Hyun
January, 2010 – May, 2010
Nathan Lubock
January, 2010 – May, 2012
Paola Lopomo
May, 2010 – May, 2012
Daria Nesterovic
Howard Hughes Research Program, May, 2011 – May, 2012
Pratt Fellow, January, 2013 – May, 2014
Meng-Yang Chen
May, 2011 – April, 2012
Sagar Naik
January, 2012 – May, 2013
Hersh Desai
May, 2012 – May, 2013
Kristopher Rawls
REU Fellow, May, 2012 - August, 2012
Victor Kuo
September, 2012 – December, 2012
Michael Rees
September, 2012 – May, 2014
Hua-Hsin “David” Tai
REU Fellow, May, 2013 - August, 2013
Kristin Murray
May, 2013 – May, 2015
Bryan Huynh
May, 2013 – August, 2014
Matthew Alston
Howard Hughes Research Program, May, 2014 - August, 2014
Marcus Coleman
May, 2014 – May, 2015
Grace Ying
BioCoRE Undergraduate Scholar, September, 2014 – May, 2015
Daniel Hull
August, 2014 – May, 2016
Lyndsay Garcia
January, 2015 – May, 2017
Matias Lopez
September, 2014 – May, 2017

Eric Musselman
Pratt Fellow August, 2015 – May, 2017

Emily Shannon
Pratt Fellow January, 2017 – May, 2018

Tim Hoer
May, 2017 – May, 2018