Faculty Research

Neural Engineering

This area applies fundamental and applied engineering techniques to help solve basic and clinical problems in the neurosciences. At a fundamental level, this area seeks a better understanding of the behavior of individual neurons, their growth, signaling mechanisms between neurons, and how populations of neurons produce complex behavior. Obtaining such information improves understanding of the communication that occurs between the various parts of the nervous system and the brain. Such knowledge can lead to the development of replacement parts and other treatments for impaired neural systems.

Areas of specialization include:

Medical Imaging

This specialization merges knowledge of unique physical properties of electromagnetic energy (i.e., sound, radiation, magnetism) and high-speed electronic data processing, signal analysis and rapid display to generate an image of a body part and more recently a bodily function. Often, these images can be obtained with minimal or completely noninvasive procedures, making them less painful and more readily repeatable than invasive techniques. Importantly, many of the devices require no ionizing radiation doses, lessening the danger of secondary radiation effects on the patient.

Areas of specialization include:

Medical imaging processing and analysis
Development of new phase-sensitive x-ray imaging

Additional information may be found at the Medical Imaging Research Center

Cell and Tissue Engineering

This area seeks to understand and attack biomedical problems at the microscopic level and use such knowledge to engineer replacement tissues and organs from individual cells. Knowledge of anatomy, biochemistry and the mechanics of cellular and sub-cellular structures is needed to understand disease processes and to target interventions. Armed with such knowledge, new technologies have been or are being developed such as:

Biomaterials
Cellular Engineering
Hemodynamics
Mass transport

Centers and Labs

Research Centers and Labs
Undergrad Labs