Chethan Pandarinath

Chethan Pandarinath

Chethan Pandarinath

Adjunct Assistant Professor

Our work centers on understanding how the brain represents information and intention, and using this knowledge to develop high-performance, robust, and practical assistive devices for people with disabilities and neurological disorders. We take a dynamical systems approach to characterizing the activity of large populations of neurons, combined with rigorous systems engineering (signal processing, machine learning, and real-time systems) to advance the performance of brain-machine interfaces and neuromodulatory devices.

chethan@gatech.edu

404-727-2851

Office Location:
Emory WMRB 6001

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
    • Neuroscience
    Additional Research:

    Our work centers on understanding how the brain represents information and intention, and using this knowledge to develop high-performance, robust, and practical assistive devices for people with disabilities and neurological disorders. We take a dynamical systems approach to characterizing the activity of large populations of neurons, combined with rigorous systems engineering (signal processing, machine learning, control theory, real-time system design) to advance the performance of brain-machine interfaces and neuromodulatory devices.


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    Paul Benkeser

    Paul Benkeser

    Paul Benkeser

    Professor
    Senior Associate Chair

    Paul Benkeser is a professor and senior associate chair in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. A member of the Georgia Tech faculty since 1985, he was one of the founding faculty of the Coulter Department in 1998 and served as its first associate chair for undergraduate studies.    

    His early research interests were in therapeutic and diagnostic applications of ultrasound. After joining the Coulter Department he redirected his energies toward enhancing undergraduate biomedical engineering  education, with particular interests in integrating problem-driven learning and global experiential learning opportunities in the curriculum. His research and education endeavors have been funded by grants from NIH, NSF, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Whitaker Foundation.    

    Dr. Benkeser has been active in engineering accreditation activities for ABET since 2002, serving in a number of capacities including program evaluator, EAC Commissioner, and member of its board of delegates. He is a member of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Biomedical Engineering Society, and American Society for Engineering Education, and a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.    

    He received his BS from Purdue University and MS and PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all in electrical engineering.

    pbenkeser@gatech.edu

    404-894-2912

    Office Location:
    UAW 2125

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Cancer Biology
    • Regenerative Medicine
    Additional Research:
    Ultrasonic bioengineering, biomedical signal and image processing, and biomedical engineering education.

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    Julia Babensee

    Julia Babensee

    Julia Babensee

    Associate Professor

    Julia Babensee is an Associate Professor in the Walter H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. Dr. Babensee is affiliated with the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Georgia Tech/Emory Center for the Engineering of Living Tissue. 

    Dr. Babensee is a member of the Cell and Molecular Biology Research Program at Winship Cancer Institute. She is also a permanent member of the NIH Bioengineering, Technology and Surgical Sciences study section. She is actively involved in several professional societies with service including SFB Member-at-Large (2008-2009) and Program Chair for the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Biomedical Engineering Society in Atlanta, Georgia. 

    Her research program is in the area of engineering of inflammatory and immune responses focused on understanding host responses to combination products. Her research interests also include: Biomaterial interactions with dendritic cells, tissue engineering for rheumatoid arthritis, and biomaterial-applied immunology.

    Babensee received her Ph.D. from University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine.

    julia.babensee@bme.gatech.edu

    404-385-0130

    Office Location:
    Petit Biotechnology Building, Office 1315

    Website

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Biomaterials
    • Chemical Biology
    • Drug Design, Development and Delivery
    • Regenerative Medicine
    Additional Research:

    Host responses to combination products, biomaterial interactions with dendritic cells, tissue engineering for rheumatoid arthritis, targeted DNA vaccine delivery, and biomaterial-applied immunology.


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    Ankur Singh

    Ankur Singh

    Ankur Singh

    Professor

    Prof. Singh has a joint appointment with the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

    Prof. Singh started at Cornell University as an Assistant Professor in 2013 and was promoted with tenure to Associate Professor with joint appointments in the Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. At Cornell, he served as the Associate Director of the NIH T32 training grant on Immuno-engineering, executive council of the Center for Immunology, and the Cornell (Ithaca) – Weill Cornell Medicine (NYC) Academic Integration initiative. Prior to joining Cornell, he completed his postdoctoral training in cell mechanobiology, cell-matrix interactions, and stem cell engineering at Georgia Tech in Mechanical Engineering.

    ankur.singh@gatech.edu

    Singh Lab Website

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Bioengineering

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    Machelle Pardue

    Machelle Pardue

    Machelle Pardue

    Professor
    Research Career Scientist, Center for Visual and Neurocognitive Rehabilitation

    Dr. Pardue is a Research Career Scientist at the Atlanta VA Medical Center, and a Professor in Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Pardue received her B.S. in zoology from the University of Wyoming and her doctorate in vision science and biology at the University of Waterloo. Her post-doctorate training in visual electrophysiology was completed with Dr. Neal Peachey at Loyola School of Medicine and Hines VA Hospital in Chicago and focused on biocompatibility of retinal prosthetics. Dr. Pardue moved to Atlanta in 2000 to join the Atlanta VA Medical Center and Emory University Department of Ophthalmology. She moved her academic appointment to Biomedical Engineering in 2015. Her research interests are focused on developing treatments for people with vision loss. To this end, she has developed three research themes within her lab: 1) neuroprotective and restorative treatments for retinal degeneration, 2) early detection and treatment of diabetic retinopathy, and 3) retinal mechanisms of refractive development and myopia. Her research has been continuously supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs, NIH, and private companies (1999-present). She has served on several VA and NIH grant review panels and frequently reviews manuscripts for several journals including Journal of Neuroscience, Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Molecular Vision, Vision Research, Journal of Neuroscience Methods, Journal of Neurochemistry and PlosOne.

    machelle.pardue@bme.gatech.edu

    404-385-3666

    Office Location:
    UAW 4104

    Website

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Neuroscience
    • Regenerative Medicine
    Additional Research:
    Pardue's lab is focused on developing treatments for people with vision loss. Steps to successful treatment require understanding the mechanisms of the disease and characterizing temporal changes to identify therapeutic windows, with the ultimate goal of rehabilitation of visual function. She uses behavioral electrophysiological, morphological, molecular, and imaging approaches to evaluate changes in retinal function and structure. Her research is guided by applying knowledge of retinal circuits and visual processing, often leading to studies of cognition and the interaction of retinal and visual circuits during health and disease. Her studies start in animal models and move to human trials when possible.

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    Hee Cheol Cho

    Hee Cheol Cho

    Hee Cheol Cho

    Associate Professor
    Urowsky-Sahr Scholar in Pediatric Bioengineering

    Hee Cheol Cho is the Urowsky-Sahr Scholar in Pediatric Bioengineering and Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Pediatrics. He received his PhD in Physiology from the University of Toronto in 2003.

    HeeCheol.Cho@emory.edu

    404-727-6356

    Office Location:
    Emory HSRB E184

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Regenerative Medicine
    Additional Research:
    The Heart Regeneration Lab focuses on using genes and chemicals to pace and regenerate the heart. We are based at Emory University in Pediatrics and BME in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering of Georgia Tech and Emory University.

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    Jeffery Markowitz

    Jeffery Markowitz

    Jeffery Markowitz

    Assistant Professor

    Our work focuses on how the brain decides which action to perform at each moment in time – that is, action selection. We are interested in the cortical and subcortical circuits that mediate this process, and how they go awry in neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. Specifically, we perform measurements of large-populations of neural activity in freely behaving mice using imaging and physiology, and distill their behavior in real-time using 3D cameras and probabilistic approaches to machine learning. Additionally, we are pursuing new methods to control activity in these circuits using precision closed-loop deep brain stimulation.

    jeffrey.markowitz@bme.gatech.edu

    Office Location:
    UAW 3102

    https://markolab.org/


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    Kyle Allison

    Kyle Allison

    Kyle Allison

    Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine/Infectious Disease, Emory University

    Kyle Allison is a bioengineer and chemical engineer whose research has focused on understanding the behavior of bacteria in order to improve antibiotics. The Allison Lab tracks individual bacteria using microscopy approaches they developed.  Kyle and his lab have made foundational discoveries in the metabolite potentiation of antibiotics, the resuscitation of persistent bacteria, and the multicellularity of E. coli (the best-studied unicellular organism).  Kyle was named to the first “30 under 30” list in Science by Forbes Magazine and received the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award to bypass traditional postdoctoral training. His research has been published in Nature, PNAS, Molecular Systems Biology, Nature Methods, Nature Chemical Biology, and other journals.  Kyle also holds a master’s degree in literature and wrote his thesis on James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.

    kyle.r.allison@emory.edu

    404-727-6974

    Office Location:
    Emory HSRB E146

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Systems Biology
    Additional Research:

    Antibiotics, Systems Biology, Multicellularity


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    Shuichi Takayama

    Shuichi Takayama

    Shuichi Takayama

    Professor, Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
    GRA Eminent Scholar, Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
    Price Gilbert, Jr. Chair in Regenerative Engineering andMedicine

    Shu Takayama earned his BS and MS in Agricultural Chemistry at the University of Tokyo. He earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California studying bio-organic synthesis with Dr. Chi‐Huey Wong. He then worked as a postdoc with Dr. George Whitesides at Harvard University where he focused on applying microfluidics to studying cell and molecular biology.

    Takayama began his career at the University of Michigan, where led his lab in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Macromolecular Science & Engineering for over 17 years. In 2017, the lab moved to Georgia Tech where Shu became the Georgia Research Alliance Price Gilbert Chair Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering.

    Takayama’s research interests are diverse and motivated by clinical and biotechnology needs. He is always interested in hearing from stakeholders in these areas who are seeking engineering collaboration.

    takayama@gatech.edu

    404.385.5722

    Office Location:
    EBB 4018

    Takayama lab

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Bioengineering
    • Biomaterials
    • Cancer Biology
    • Cell Manufacturing
    • Medical Device Design, Development and Delivery
    • Micro and Nano Device Engineering
    • Miniaturization & Integration
    • Molecular, Cellular and Tissue Biomechanics
    • Nanomaterials
    • Systems Biology
    Additional Research:

    Use of micro/nanofluidics for cell analysis; diagnostics; and chromatin analysis; High throughput 3D cell cultures; Organs-on-a-chip construction and design; Role of rhythm in cell signaling; Self-switching fluidic circuits; Fracture fabrication


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