This year’s Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research winners are:

J. Todd Hastings: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

J. Todd Hastings’ diverse research areas, which span from nano‐fabrication techniques to medical sensor technologies, have made him an outstanding faculty member who demonstrates excellence in his research.

Hastings is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award as well as a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award. He has secured over $4.2 million dollars in funded projects as principal investigator. Hastings has led 13 awards as principal investigator and collaborated on many others. His recent Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) grant on Development of an Electron‐Beam based Instrument to Study Nanoscale Processes in Liquids has the goal to construct and validate an entirely new instrument that enables imaging and fabrication of nanostructures using electron‐beams in liquids. This $1.2 million research project will permit new investigations into nano-fabrication with new materials that could not be used in previous methods, and the new technique aims for lower cost, more stable and less toxic reactants. The technique has the opportunity to create new devices that will impact energy, communication, computing and medicine.

Hastings’ research also reaches into the medical arena. His research into intraocular pressure sensors for glaucoma patients has developed a simple sensor that can be implanted into the eye, which can be read externally to provide accurate pressure readings. This result of this research will help patients monitor and control their glaucoma, a disease that is the number one cause of irreversible blindness.

J. Zach Hilt: Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering

Since arriving at the University of Kentucky in 2004, Zach Hilt, William T. Bryan Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, has established a thriving and highly-active research program oriented towards the rational design and development of innovative biomaterials and nanocomposites with applications for remote actuation, drug delivery and as biosensors. A highly valued and energetic collaborator, Hilt has forged substantive interactions with faculty in biomedical engineering, chemistry, medicine and pharmaceutical sciences, and has played a leading role in a number of multi-investigator interdisciplinary research efforts, including the National Science Foundation supported Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) and Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs.

The focus of Hilt’s research is the intelligent design and novel application of biomaterials and nanocomposites based on hydrogel systems. He has completed an extensive series of studies focused on the formulation of hydrogel nanocomposites tailored for remote actuation via inclusion of magnetic nanoparticles. These materials can be activated via application of an external magnetic field, leading to controlled outcomes specific to drug delivery, enzymatic activity and microfluidic valve and sensor actuation. Hilt has supported his activities through a diverse base of external funding, including a recent commercialization grant from Kentucky Science and Engineering Foundation.

While making important contributions to graduate research at UK, Hilt has also been a leading advocate in the college for undergraduate research. Since joining the UK faculty, he has served as research advisor to 58 undergraduate students on formal research projects.

Ruigang Yang: Department of Computer Science

In just under 10 years since arriving at the University of Kentucky, Ruigang Yang has amassed a sterling record of research productivity and impact and become one of the top young leaders in the field of 3D modeling and sensing.

Professor Yang’s research is concentrated on the acquisition and visualization of real-world objects and events, namely graphics and vision. His recent contributions include a method to separate bounced light and remove inter-reflections in photometric setups, an image-based reconstruction framework to derive models of water streams from real scenes captured by stereoscopic video and a new method for real-time formatting (identification and separation of foreground/background as in the “green screen” used by weather forecasters). Professor Yang’s most recent NSF grant is based on a framework his group developed to estimate body pose configurations from a single depth map, which achieves significantly higher accuracy than previous state-of-the-art methods. He is considered a key contributor to the success of the Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments (Vis Center) and, according to Google Scholar, his work has been cited more than 3,000 times.

In the past three years, Professor Yang has been awarded three new NSF grants as the Primary Investigator for a total of $2.3 million, one of which was a highly competitive Major Research Infrastructure grant of $1 million. He is also a Co-PI on three other grants that total $2.5 million. In the nearly 10 years he has been at UK, Professor Yang has averaged approximately $470,000/year in new funding as PI.

Dibakar Bhattacharyya: Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering

For nearly half a century, Dibakar “DB” Bhattacharyya, University Alumni Professor of Chemical Engineering, has produced outstanding research achievements in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering. As a result, he is internationally known as a chemical engineering educator and researcher as well as a recognized leader in the field of membrane science.

In his recent work, DB has extended his fundamental membrane research to develop new functionalized membranes and nanostructured materials for enzyme catalysis, ultra-high capacity metal capture and other environmental and bio-based applications. He has focused on the integration of knowledge from the life sciences to create novel membranes with stimuli-responsive properties, and has exploited nanosynthesis approaches for the generation of unique layer-by-layer assemblies for enzyme immobilization in membrane structures. In addition, DB has been a pioneer in the application of green synthesis techniques for membrane functionalization, leading to new membrane supports for a range of water remediation applications. During his fall 2012 sabbatical DB was in residence at Sepro Membranes, Inc. in Oceanside, Calif., leading translational efforts to incorporate his recent discoveries into membrane modules for industrial water treatment.

DB´s high research productivity is evident in a number of core metrics. He has procured approximately $2 million in direct research funding over the last five years, and has been an integral member of a number of important multi-disciplinary efforts. Without question, Dibakar Bhattacharyya has sustained excellence in research that has and will continue to have lasting impact on the field of membrane science.

David Puleo: Center for Biomedical Engineering

David Puleo, director of the University of Kentucky Center for Biomedical Engineering, is an internationally recognized authority in biomedical engineering. He is a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and has served as assistant and associate editor as well as on the editorial boards of several international journals.

Puleo’s research endeavors have made contributions in cutting-edge areas of cell-biomaterial interactions, biomaterials engineering and cellular/molecular engineering. Much of his work involves novel chemical and topographical modification of biomaterial surfaces and controlled release of chemical compounds to induce cell functions pertinent to new tissue formation. Applications of his research include promoting bone formation around orthopedic and dental implants, healing of large, infected bone defects, augmentation of alveolar bone and regeneration of growth plate.

In addition to serving as principal investigator of numerous grants, Puleo has exhibited a high capacity for bringing researchers from a variety of disciplines to win grant awards from funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Whitaker Foundation, Kentucky Science and Engineering Foundation and industry partners. He has supervised and co-supervised more than 40 Ph.D. and master’s graduate students, five medical students, five orthopedic surgery residents during their research rotations and more than 30 undergraduate students. In 2010 and 2013 Puleo received the Faculty Teaching Award from the Center for Biomedical Engineering.

Colleagues and collaborators endorse Puleo’s research as of the highest caliber, characterized by innovative approaches, meticulous execution and an ability to recognize key questions and problems, redirect his work and explore new challenging research areas.

This year’s Dean’s Award for Excellence in Service winners are:

Donald Colliver: Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

Donald Colliver has dedicated the majority of his career to service roles within the engineering profession as well as within the University of Kentucky College of Engineering.

Colliver currently serves as associate director of the Kentucky Industrial Assessment Center (KIAC) as well as associate director of UK’s Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK). Colliver has been instrumental in arranging and performing industrial energy assessments for KIAC and passes his knowledge on to students working with him. With PEIK, Colliver was solely responsible for developing the Engineering Experiences course in which PEIK interns were exposed to power and energy industries through weekly tours.

Colliver has been a member of the National Engineers Week Steering Committee since 2002 and also contributes service to the Commonwealth as a member of the Technical Working Group for the Kentucky Climate Action Plan Council. Since 2009, he has served as a board member of the Kentucky Center for Renewable Energy Research and Environmental Stewardship, to which he was appointed by Governor Steve Beshear as the representative from higher education.

One of Colliver’s most significant service activities occurred in 2008-2010 when he served as faculty advisor for the UK team entry in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. His responsibilities included spearheading the team, writing the application, raising funds, forming the team and overseeing construction. The team’s effort was rewarded with a top 10 finish in the 2009 competition. He has reprised his role as faculty advisor for the 2013 UK Solar Decathlon Team.

David Silverstein: Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering

David Silverstein joined the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering as an assistant professor at the Paducah Campus in 1999. During his time at Paducah, Silverstein has been a leader in university and professional service; this service, along with his numerous scholarly accomplishments, has been a key factor in establishing the national profile of the Paducah program. In 2012, he was named director of the Paducah Campus.

Upon his arrival, Silverstein was tasked with building an independent student chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) for the Paducah Campus. From the beginning, Silverstein established a tradition of professional dedication and outreach among the Paducah students that has led to the chapter receiving an Outstanding Student Chapter Award 11 years in a row—every year since its inception. In recognition of his outstanding achievements as chapter advisor, Silverstein received the national AIChE Outstanding Student Chapter Advisor Award in 2009.

Silverstein’s professional service record encompasses sustained and important contributions to the educational programming activities of the AIChE and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). In AIChE, he has occupied a number of leadership roles that ultimately led to the establishment of the AIChE Education Division in 2009. Starting in 2003, Silverstein served as vice chair and chair of the Undergraduate Education Committee, vice chair and chair of the Education Group, and finally as founding chair of the Education Division (2009-2011). In 2011, he was the recipient of the national Herb Epstein Award for outstanding service in technical programming.

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The following winners were announced during the presentation of awards that followed Mr. Polston’s keynote address:

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

Frank Woeste Award: Kaitlyn Braun

Outstanding BAE Junior: Matt Fogle

Outstanding BAE Senior: Zeb Vance

Outstanding BAE Teacher: Czarena Crofcheck

Chemical Engineering

AIChE Outstanding Senior Member: Nick Winquist

AIChE Outstanding Junior Member: Lindsay Gray

Omega Chi Epsilon Outstanding Senior Member: David Spencer

Outstanding Junior: Brianna Smith

Outstanding Senior: David Spencer

Outstanding Teacher: Doug Kalika

Civil Engineering

Outstanding Junior: Admin Husic

Outstanding Senior: Allie Perkins

Outstanding University Scholar: Davis Huston

Outstanding Graduate Student: Gabe Dadi

Outstanding Faculty: Brad Davis

College of Engineering Awards

Lou Takacs Engineering Cooperative Education Award: Paul Varnado

College of Engineering Alumni Association Awards

Engineering Alumni Association Leadership Scholarship: Alex Wade

Engineering Alumni Association Senior Leadership Award: Kathryn Gardner

Computer Science

Outstanding Academic Performance: Bradley Elliot/Alex Williams

ACM Outstanding Teacher: Judy Goldsmith

ACM Outstanding Teaching Assistant: R. Paul Mihail/Ismail Abumuhfouz

Thaddeus B. Curtz Memorial Scholarship: Ting Gu

Graduate Center for Biomedical Engineering

Outstanding Teacher: David Puleo

Outstanding Graduate Student: Ran Cheng

Electrical and Computer Engineering

H. Alex Romanowitz Memorial Award: Chris Garnick

Outstanding ECE Senior: Matt Davis

Outstanding ECE Teacher: Stephen Gedney

Robert L. Cosgriff Award: Jason Rexroat

Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding ECE Junior: Charlie Miles

Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding ECE Graduate Student Award: Sean Hamlet

Materials Engineering

ASM International Bluegrass Chapter Scholarships: Wilson Rice, Amber Gay

Outstanding Junior: Cory Parker

Outstanding Senior: William Martin

Outstanding Teacher: Fuqian Yang

Mechanical Engineering

ASME Bluegrass Section Outstanding Scholar: Robert Burgess

Pi Tau Sigma Outstanding Mechanical Engineering Sophomore: Andrew Casciato

Outstanding Junior: Andrew Wilder

Outstanding Senior: Tyler Flynn

Outstanding Graduate Student: Xin Hua

ASME Outstanding Faculty Award: Jesse Hoagg

Outstanding Teaching Award – Lecturer Series: Christine Goble

Mining Engineering

Outstanding Junior: Austin Brock

Outstanding Senior: David Norton

Outstanding Teacher: G.T. Lineberry

Henry Mason Lutes Award for Excellence in Engineering Education: Judy Goldsmith

Tau Beta Pi Awards

Most Outstanding Senior: Adrianne Shearer

Most Outstanding Graduate Student: Stacy Schal

Most Outstanding Staff: Robyn Morefield

Most Outstanding Professor: Jimmy Fox

Outstanding Teacher in Paducah: Jeff Seay

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“Radiation doesn’t only destroy the tumor cells, but it also causes many side effects throughout the body,” Yu explains. “Because we can monitor changes in the tumor more safely, easily, continually and less expensively than with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography (CT), we can give clinicians timely feedback on whether the treatment is effective.”

While Yu’s scanner has shown success when measuring neck tumors, which are hard and allow for evenly distributed contact, a system relying on contact probes may not be effective when attempting to measure tumors in soft breast tissue or pressure ulcers. Probe contact on ulcer tissue can cause infections and, because breast tissue is soft, it is nearly impossible to consistently apply the right amount of pressure and achieve even coverage of the tumor.

So how can one collect the measurements typically provided through a contact probe system without applying pressure to the tumor or affected area? Yu’s solution has been to develop a non-contact probe device that yields blood flow, oxygenation and metabolic rate measurements without ever touching the skin.

“We have developed a prototype that we are adjusting based on our early testing and have published one paper on using the non-contact probe to measure blood flow,” says Yu. “Our goal is to take our findings, show funding agencies that we can accomplish something no one has ever done before in creating a non-contact probe to functionally image tumors and then get the product to the market.”

While Yu has seen success in early experiments using the device, unanticipated technical challenges have required him and his graduate students to make adjustments.

“What we have discovered is that even subject’s breathing can alter the readings, something that doesn’t occur with contact probes on neck tumors,” he recounts. “Also, simple things like room light can affect the scan and distort the measurements.”

The need for such a device, which has potential to substantially increase the percentage of breast cancer survivors, as well as minimize debilitating side effects of treatment, is immense. Yu is eager to meet the need.

“From early detection of breast tumors or pressure ulcers to frequent, inexpensive monitoring of treatment effectiveness, a non-contact probe system can significantly advance the way we diagnose and treat them.”

For more information on Guoqiang Yu’s Biomedical Optics Lab, visit http://bioptics.engineering.uky.edu/.

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For many students, selecting a major is an intimidating proposition. What if I end up disliking what I chose? Will I be doomed to a career in a field I can’t stand or, worse, one that is increasingly obsolete? Such questions are not uncommon and even selecting a highly-marketable major like engineering doesn’t fully resolve the quandary. After all, there are numerous disciplines within the broad field of engineering and even more particularized specializations within each discipline. Should I investigate aerospace applications for engineering or try my hand at new network solutions? It can be overwhelming.

How can students evaluate their numerous options in a way that takes into account their interests, life experiences and educational opportunities? Members of the faculty in the UK College of Engineering have related the various ways in which they discovered what they wanted to immerse themselves in for the rest of their professional lives. We have organized their reflections into five categories.

BE CURIOUS: David Puleo, Director, Center for Biomedical Engineering

For most of his youth, David Puleo wanted to be a surgeon; however, upon entering high school, he realized his strong interest in medicine was matched by an equal fascination with technology and engineering concepts. One day, while reading, he came across the words “biomedical engineering.” Intrigued, he began to conduct research and discovered an organization called the Biomedical Engineering Society. He wrote them, asking, “What is biomedical engineering and where can I study it?” After examining the literature they sent him, Dr. Puleo knew the career path he wanted to take. “Biomedical engineering was the marriage of the medical and the technical that I had wanted,” he says. “And it still offered the potential to go to medical school if I ever desired to pursue it.”

Following your curiosity can lead you into new fields and communities you might not have known existed. With the wealth of information available through internet research, it has never been easier to discover previously unknown career opportunities.

REFLECT ON YOUR BACKGROUND: Nikiforos Stamatiadis, Professor of Civil Engineering

Growing up in Greece, Nikiforos Stamatiadis was fascinated by public transportation. The ability to accommodate large groups of people within a networked infrastructure drew him to study transportation engineering. During his undergraduate studies in Greece, he helped develop efficient bus routes and systems. Upon beginning a graduate program in the United States, he quickly discovered that, broadly speaking, the U.S. doesn’t rely on public transportation. As a result, he shifted his attention to other aspects of transportation engineering, such as driver licensing, driver education and highway safety; those issues, like public transportation, affect thousands of people every day. “At the end of the day, if I design a safe highway that serves the needs of the community, accommodates mobility concerns and is conscientious of our impact upon the environment, I consider that time spent very rewarding.”

When connecting your experience to possible career options, don’t overlook your childhood, adolescence, geographical location, hobbies, etc. They may provide clues as to what subjects naturally keep you interested.

ACCUMULATE EXPERIENCES: Christine Trinkle, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Christine Trinkle obtained B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering right here at UK, but it wasn’t until she was pursuing her Ph.D at Cal-Berkeley that she began to see the shape of her future research. She recalls, “When I went to Berkeley, my interest wasn’t on the biological side, but one day I decided to grab some coffee and head to a talk with some friends. It was on the interface between the mechanical engineering side and the needs in the medical, pharmaceutical and biological areas. I remember sitting in this talk and thinking, ‘This is amazing! This is such an interesting and unique part of mechanical engineering that I had never seen before and had never guessed was there.’”

Attending lectures, visiting trade shows and taking advantage of student travel opportunities to annual conferences is a great way to accumulate experiences, some of which will influence your course of study and future vocational choices.

SEEK OUT PROFESSORS WHO LOVE THEIR WORK: Braden Lusk, Assistant Professor of Mining Engineering

Like most young boys, Braden Lusk enjoyed setting off fireworks and creating small explosions, but never planned on becoming a professional blaster until he sat in professor Paul Worsey’s blasting seminar while an undergraduate student at Missouri-Rolla (now Missouri S&T). Lusk recalls: “Paul came in and played a video called ‘Dance of the Detonators.’ It was nothing but mine blasts set to classical music. The whole time, he was in the back of the room, laughing like he had never seen it before, and I thought, ‘Man, this is crazy…I’ve got to do this!’” As a result, Lusk began taking as many of Dr. Worsey’s classes as he could.

Most professors relish the chance to work with students on research—especially undergraduate students. Take advantage of office hours and other opportunities to connect with professors. The satisfaction they find in their research may become infectious.

SEIZE OPPORTUNITIES: Thomas Novak, Alliance Coal Chair Professor of Mining Engineering

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, Tom Novak was recruited by the U.S. Bureau of Mines in Pittsburgh, where he first began to research mine safety. While with the Bureau, an unforeseen opening emerged. “The Bureau of Mines offered a program where I could earn a graduate degree while working for them. I already had an electrical engineering background, so I got a master’s degree in mining engineering from the University of Pittsburgh,” he recalls. After that, the educational opportunities continued to present themselves. “Once I had my master’s degree, Penn State contacted me about being an instructor of their mining technology courses. In return, I got time off to pursue my Ph.D. coursework and research. I jumped at that chance.”

Novak chuckles when he thinks about his diverse professional experience. “There’s really no such thing as long-range planning,” he says. “If, when I was in high school, you would have told me I would be a university professor for over 30 years, I would have said you were nuts! But I took advantage of opportunities when they were there.”

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“Determining that abstinence is the best policy regarding children and ATVs was merely a hypothesis; there was no scientific evidence to support their judgment,” he recalls. “I felt like someone needed to take a more scientific approach to the question of whether or not children are too small to ride ATVs.”

But how does one test such a hypothesis? What kinds of experiments have the potential to produce relevant data, yet prevent children from becoming injured during testing? Dr. Bernard knew he would need help.

So he looked for an engineer.

“The way engineers look at the world is crucial for tackling a question like this. If you want to go beyond, ‘Oh, there’s another group of injured children, so children should never ride these things,’ then you need engineers,” he says. “I knew about the Wenner-Gren biomedical research facility, but didn’t know exactly what they did. So I sent an email asking if anyone could help me test the hypothesis. A few days later, I got a response from David Pienkowski.”

David Pienkowski has been a faculty member in the Center for Biomedical Engineering at UK since 1991. Specializing in bone research and osteoporosis, he was intrigued by Dr. Bernard’s request.

“I knew nothing about ATVs prior to talking with Andrew regarding the means to test this hypothesis,” he acknowledges, “but with some work, and help from Blue Grass Motor Sports, nurses and many others, we devised a research strategy.”

What have they discovered?

“We are in the process of developing a simple recipe for fitting children onto ATVs. In terms of size, there are two different sizes of ATVs, one aimed toward youth and one for adults,” Pienkowski explains. “There are differences in vehicle dimensions beyond the obvious; one such example is the brake lever on a youth ATV – it is the same as that on an adult ATV. That caused us to ask: how can a child reach a lever that is farther away than it would be for an adult and safely brake an ATV in time to avoid a collision?”

Dr. Bernard elaborates, “We believe we can supply information manufacturers can use for design changes, and that those design changes will lead to greater injury prevention.”

Another finding has to do with factors leading to ATVs tipping over, especially when children ride behind adults.

“ATV injuries come in all forms, but it is all too common for a driver to over-accelerate when going up a hill and tip the ATV. When that happens, the child suffers the weight of the vehicle and the adult,” describes Pienkowski. “We are studying the relationship between the angle at which the ATV can be ridden, the weight of the child and the position of the child relative to the rear axle and torque applied by the throttle input.”

“Given what we have learned from studying those relationships, we are surprised there aren’t more ATV accidents,” adds Dr. Bernard.

Both researchers agree that perhaps the most important lesson they have learned is that age is not a sufficient marker of who should ride an ATV.

“We need to focus on size, not age,” says Pienkowski. “Kids can be the same age and yet differently proportioned. This is a guideline we would like to see manufacturers and retailers change for the safety of their customers.”

Through the peer-reviewed literature, public service announcements and conversations with ATV manufacturers and retailers, the two hope to disseminate the fruits of their research in ways that lead to safer practices and fewer ATV-related injuries and deaths.

“Kentucky is fourth in the nation in ATV deaths, behind California, Texas and Pennsylvania—even though our population is far less than those states; yet, we know that in spite of laws and public service announcements, adults will allow children to ride ATVs. We want to offer scientifically-based guidelines that will make such riding safer.”

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Thursday, August 2 marked the conclusion of a summer’s worth of research for students enrolled in the UK College of Engineering’s Research Experience for Undergraduates program in bioactive interfaces and devices. To concisely summarize their weeks of intense work, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, students designed research posters which were displayed in the Raymond Student Commons of the Ralph G. Anderson building. Judges and other interested guests engaged REU participants in discussions about their research, with the judges determining competition winners of various categories later in the program.

In the Poster Competition, David Spencer and Alexandra Tsoras tied for first place with Joshua Borrajo coming in second and Nkolika Egbukichi third. Additional awards handed out went to Lindsay Gray for Best Oral Presentation and Stella Shin for Best Blog Award. 

Prior to the award announcements, Carey Smith, CEO of Lexington-based Big Ass Fans, gave the keynote address to those in attendance. The awards were presented by REU program directors Kimberly Ward Anderson and Zach Hilt.

UK’s REU program brings students from all over the country to work with expert faculty covering several different disciplines. This year’s participants were:

Naveed Bakh (Vanderbilt University), Joshua Borrajo (University of California – Berkeley), Benjamin Brummel (University of South Carolina), Stefani Cleaver (DePauw University), Nkolika Egbukichi (Portland State Univerisity), Kiva Forsmark (University of Minnesota – Twin Cities), Lindsay Gray, Sarah Negaard, David Spencer, Alexandra Tsoras (all from the University of Kentucky), Casey Kukielski (Clemson University), Thao Ngo (Arizona State University), Pablo Palomino (University of Florida), Harrison Sapper (Vassar College), and Stella Shin (University of Arizona).

Faculty advisors included chemical engineering professors Tom Dziubla, Kimberly Ward Anderson, Steve Rankin, Dibakar Bhattacharyya, Brad Berron, Zach Hilt and Barbara Knutson; materials engineering professors Bruce Hinds and Rich Eitel; biomedical engineering professors David Puleo and Hainsworth Shin, pharmaceutical sciences professors Brad Anderson, Younsoo Bae, and Heidi Mansour and mechanical engineering professor Christine Trinkle.

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“The most fascinating thing about the brain is that we have it right here,” Dr. Sunderam says, pointing to his head, “and yet we know very little about it. When it comes to understanding the way we live—and how we are going to live in the future—we need to think about intracranial intelligence at least as much as we think about extraterrestrial intelligence.”

Dr. Sunderam, a professor in the Center for Biomedical Engineering, leads the Neural Systems Laboratory, which focuses on the modeling and diagnosis of brain state for applications in epilepsy therapy, sleep monitoring and neural interfaces. Diagnosing brain state, he says, takes advantage of the way human beings “digitize” the world. “When we communicate, we say, ‘It is sunny,’ or, ‘It is night.’ We don’t say, ‘It is less night.’ We discretize the state also because that is how our brains work. The brain tends toward one of several distinctive states at any given time. Once we are able to diagnose the brain’s state, we can do useful things such as identify the start of an epileptic seizure—when the brain goes from a non-seizure state to a seizure state—or characterize abnormal sleep patterns. To detect brain state, we analyze an electroencephalogram (EEG) or other kinds of imaging to track the brain’s activity.”

One of the main problems Dr. Sunderam is studying is the role of sleep-wake dynamics in epilepsy and its potential role in therapy. “It took me several years to realize that sleep was an important determinant in seizure generation,” he explains. “In epilepsy therapy, seizure control is viewed as the holy grail. But the truth is that seizures affect sleep, behavior and cognition and poor sleep can beget seizures. I am trying to propose a comprehensive therapy that begins with developing a model based on normal sleep patterns and their interactions with seizures. When we understand how an individual’s sleep pattern correlates to seizure activity, we can create a dynamic programming strategy that simultaneously fosters normal sleep and fewer seizures.”

The son of a sailor, Dr. Sunderam completed his undergraduate education in his native India and subsequently applied to graduate programs in the United States and Europe. “I wanted to travel,” he says, smiling, “but I couldn’t be a sailor like my dad. I had to travel my way.”

While working on his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Kansas University, Dr. Sunderam came across a flyer for a company called Flint Hills Scientific, who was advertising intern positions for projects pertaining to brain signal analysis. “At that time, my Ph.D. work centered on how bones heal from surgical procedures,” he recalls. “Bones take a long time to heal. I would take an image and have to wait at least another week or more until I took another. Working on the brain was a completely different dynamic. The brain can change state at the snap of your fingers. We were working on algorithms that could detect seizures from the EEG and apply electrical stimulation to stop them. I was fascinated.”

Dr. Sunderam never returned to bone research; instead, he stayed at Flint Hills Scientific for six years before taking on research faculty positions in neural engineering at George Mason University and Penn State University. In 2009, eager to begin his own lab and continue his research on brain state diagnosis and its applications, Dr. Sunderam was hired to join the faculty of the Center for Biomedical Engineering. “What I liked about UK is that there seemed to be a lot of interest in collaboration, which is genuinely possible because the hospital is right here. Testing our ideas clinically is a lot easier because of the proximity,” he shares.

Dr. Sunderam also confides that he appreciates UK’s basketball tradition and enjoys being on a campus where basketball interest is high. In fact, he considers himself something of a good luck charm: three of the four schools he has attended or worked at have made the NCAA Tournament’s Final Four while he was present (Kansas, George Mason and Kentucky). However, he is 0-3 in national championships.

“Perhaps this will be the year,” he laughs.

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