Seminar Series Archive

2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019

The MU-MCW BME Graduate Seminar Series invites local, regional and national speakers to present current or novel biomedical research and recent innovation to graduate students in the MU-MCW Department of Biomedical Engineering. Below, view this program's recent past speakers.

 

For a list of upcoming speakers, view the Graduate Seminar Series page. For further information on current or past speakers, please contact Dr. Tanya Onushko.

 

Past Speakers

 

Spring 2025

  • January 24, 2025: "Brainstem Circuits for Motor Control," presented by Jared Cregg, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
  • February 7, 2025: "Medical Device Innovation for Global Health—Scaling a package of affordable, effective technologies for newborn care in Africa," presented by Elizabeth Asma, MS, Senior Research Engineer at Rice University's Institute for Global Health Technologies.
  • February 21, 2025: "MR imaging of the upper airway in obstructive sleep apnea," presented by Chantal Darquenne, PhD, Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego.
  • March 7, 2025: "Taking the next step: Using virtual reality to study the contributions of attention and anxiety to older adult mobility," presented by Tiphanie Raffegeau, PhD, Assistant Professor in the School of Kinesiology in the Sports Medicine Assessment Rehabilitation and Testing lab and a core faculty member in the Center for Advancing Systems Science and Bioengineering Innovation (CASSBI).
  • March 21, 2025: "NRC Microscopy Core Resources to Support MCW Researchers," presented by Chris Olsen, PhD,  Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
  • April 4, 2025: "Improving motor function after spinal cord injury," presented by Ismael Seáñez, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Neurosurgery at Washington University in St. Louis.
  • April 11, 2025: "Liquid Biopsies and Sepsis," presented by Nick Semenkovich, MD, PhD, physician-scientist at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Assistant Professor in MCW's Data Science Institute. 
  • April 25, 2025: "Interdisciplinary by Design: Co-Creating Wearable Technology for Stroke Rehabilitation," presented by Kim Bassindale, PT, DPT, Assistant Director fo the Neuromotor Control Laboratory (NMCL) within Marquette University and the Medical College of Wisconsin's Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering.

 

Fall 2024

  • September 13, 2024:  "Live Imaging of Cell Dynamics in the Retina with Microscopy and Ophthalmoscopy," presented by Kate Grieve, PhD, research director and INSERM team lead, Vision Institute, Paris, France 
  • October 4, 2024:  "How is the Brain Reprogrammed in Alzheimer's Disease?"  Presented by Shankar Subramaniam, PhD, Joan and Erwin Jacobs Endowed Chair in Bioengineering and Systems Biology; Distinguished Professor of Bioengineering, Computer Science & Engineering; Cellular & Molecular Medicine; and Nanoengineering; University of California, San Diego, CA 
  • October 25, 2024: "Near-term Quantum Sensing Technologies in Biomedical Application," presented by Janette Strasburger, MD, professor in the Department of Pediatrics, MCW and Children's Wisconsin
  • November 8, 2024: "Impact Disparity on Vehicle Crash Injury: Sex Matters," presented by Susan Cronn, NP, DNP, nurse practitioner specializing in trauma surgery, current QI lead for the Division of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, Medical College of Wisconsin 
  • November 22, 2024: "iTB Maps: using neural networks to distinguish non-enhancing, infiltrative brain tumor from peritumoral edema based on multi-parametric MRI," presented by Robert Wujek, a graduate student in the MU-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering working under the direction of Dr. Kathleen Schmainda, MCW
  • December 6, 2024: Medical Device and Clinical Systems Cybersecurity—Why, How, and Future Trends," presented by Dean Sabel, Senior Director of Cybersecurity for GE Healthcare

 

Spring 2024

  • January 26, 2024: Role of interactions between cardiac electromechanics and coronary perfusion in cardiovascular diseases," presented by Lei Fan, PhD, assistant professor, Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • February 26, 2024: "Estimation of nasal airway cross-sectional area from endoscopy using depth maps: a proof of concept study," presented by Guillherme Garcia, PhD, assistant professor in the MU-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Chris Larkee, Visual Technology Specialist, Marquette Visualization Lab.
  • February 23, 2024: "Calcium Effects on Mitochondrial Ultrastructural," presented by Jason Bazil, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Physiology and BioMolecular Science Gateway, Michigan State University.
  • March 8, 2024: "Transfusion Medicine—Collection, Processing, Testing, and Administration," presented by Melissa Thill, ME, Risk Management Project Manager at Abbott. 
  • March 22, 2024:  "Neural mechanisms of attention to visual features and objects," presented by Taosheng Liu, PhD, Professor of Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University. 
  • April 5, 2024: "Unraveling the G-protein gamma subunit GNG2 in Lung Cancer Metastasis to the Brain," presented by Gopal Iyer, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Human Oncology, University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • April 19, 2024: "Using ex-vivo siRNA approach to endothelialize commercially available vascular grafts," presented by Shank Rao, PhD, post-doctoral fellow working under the direction of Brandon Tefft, PhD, in the Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering.

 

Fall 2023

  • September 15, 2023: "Post-traumatic Osteoarthritis Risk from Pathomechanics: Supporting Studies and New Intervention Strategies," presented by Don Anderson, PhD, the Richard and Jan Johnson Chair in Orthopedic Biomechanics, Professor and Vice-Chair of Research in the Department of Orthopedics & Rehabilitation at the University of Iowa
  • September 29, 2023: "RNA and Lipid Nanomedicines to Control Bleeding and Thrombosis," presented by Christian Kastrup, PhD, Professor in the Department of Surgery, MCW
  • October 13, 2023: "Foot and Ankle Biomechanics: Empowering Clinical Interventions with Advanced Technology to Study 3D Morphology and Kinematics," presented by Amy Lenz, PhD, research assistant professor, Department of Orthopaedics, Utah School of Medicine
  • October 27, 2023: Seminar presented by Joseph T. Barbieri, PhD, professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, MCW; associate director, Medical Scientist Training Program
  • November 3, 2023: "Application of Human Amniotic Membrane in Tissue Engineering," presented by Bo Wang, PhD, assistant professor, MU-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • November 17, 2023: "Characterizing attention dynamics with functional brain dynamics," presented by Monica Rosenberg, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago
  • December 1, 2023: "Quantitative methods in fluorescence guided surgery and retinal imaging," presented by Ken Tichauer, PhD, Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Graduate Affairs, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology

 

Spring 2023   

  • January 30, 2023: "Putting the Heat Back into Calorimetry," presented by Colin Burnett, MD, Electrophysiology Fellow, Medical College of Wisconsin
  • February 3, 2023: "Development of a New Generation of Nanoparticles with Acellular Porcine Bone for Regenerative Engineering and Orthopedic Therapy," presented by Austin Stellpflug, PhD Candidate working under the direction of Dr. Bo Wang, Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • February 17, 2023: "Recording Neural Activity 24/7 at Different Scales in the Human Brain: A Unique Opportunity to Study Mechanisms Underlying Memory and Epilepsy," presented by Hernan Rey, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Neurosurgery, MCW
  • March 24, 2023: "Novel Therapeutic Targets and Development of Drug Delivery Systems for Use in Adipose Tissues," presented by Marcella Vaicik, PhD, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Armour College of Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology
  • April 14, 2023: "Light + Sound: Peering into Brain Function and Metabolism," presented by Song Hu, PhD, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, WashU Medicine
  • April 21, 2023: "MR Image Segmentation & Analytics to Characterize the Upper Airway Structure in Obese Children with Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS)," presented by Yubing Tong, PhD, Senior Research Investigator, University of Pennsylvania Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships
  • April 28, 2023: "Development of Patient-Centered, Personalized Physical Activity Interventions Using Digital Health Technology," presented by Whitney Morelli, PhD, Assistant Professor, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, MCW

 

Fall 2022   

  • September 30, 2022: "Label-free Quantitative Imaging of Cellular Metabolism via Fluorescence Microscopy," presented by Alex Walsh, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University
  • October 7, 2022: "The Brain Renin-Angiotensin System in Metabolic Control and Obesity & Introduction to the MCW Comprehensive Rodent Metabolic Phenotyping Core (CRMPC)," presented by Justin Grobe, PhD, Department of Physiology, MCW
  • October 14, 2022: "Artificial Intelligence in Radiology," presented by Agrahara Bharatkumar, MD, Associate Professor of Diagnostic Radiology, Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin
  • October 28, 2022: "Radio-pathomic Mapping of Brain Cancer," presented by Peter LaViolette, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Radiology, MCW
  • November 4, 2022: "Automatable 3D Assessment of Weightbearing CT Data: Improving Diagnosis and Treatment in the Foot and Ankle," presented by Kevin Dibbern, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Marquette-MCW Orthopaedic & Rehabilitation Engineering Center, Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • November 18, 2022:  "Advances and Applications in Mass Spectrometry Imaging," presented by Brian Hoffman, PhD, Study Directory of Mass Spectrometry and Protein Chemistry at The Jackson Laboratory
  • December 2, 2022:  "Resources for Healthcare and HealthTech Startups in Southeast Wisconsin," presented by Daniel Sem, JD, PhD, Vice Provost of Research and Innovation at Concordia University
  • December 9, 2022:  "Addressing Functional Hand Limitations After Stroke," presented by Derek Kamper, PhD, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, NC State and the University of North Carolina

 

Spring 2022

  • January 28, 2022: "A Multicenter Study to Evaluate Pain Characteristics in Osteogenesis Imperfecta," presented by Mercedes Rodriguez Celin, MD. 
  • February 4, 2022:  "Post-stroke Postural Abnormalities in the Arm and Their Relationship to Loss of Motor Control," presented by Alkis Hadjiosif, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow at John Hopkins University
  • March 4, 2022: "Peripheral Optogenetic Stimulation of Motor Activity for Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation," presented by Jordan Williams, PhD, Assistant Professor, Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • March 25, 2022:  "The interplay of Biodegradable Metal Performance and Physiological Microenvironments: Informing the Material Design of Advanced Cardiovascular Implants," presented by Roger Guillory, PhD, Assistant Professor, Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • April 1, 2022:  "Modeling Drug Delivery to the Nasal Passages with Nasal Sprays," presented by Gui Garcia, PhD, Assistant Professor, Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • April 8, 2022:  " Adolescent Baseball Pitching Biomechanics: Implications on Injury Risk and Performance," presented by Janelle Cross, PhD, Medical College of Wisconsin
  • April 22, 2022:  "Development and Pre-Clinical Testing of Our Handheld Ligament Tensiometer," presented by Josh Roth, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Wisconsin—Madison
  • April 29, 2022:  "Biomechanical Phenotyping of Children with Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome," presented by Hyo Jung Jeong, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Marquette University

 

Fall 2021   

  •  September 3, 2021: "Non-invasive Hemodynamic Monitoring of Bone, Brain and Breast Using Diffuse Optics," presented by Regine Choe, PhD
  • September 17, 2021: "Improving Incontinence Therapy Outcomes with Electrical Stimulation and Improved Diagnostics," presented by Jim Hokanson, PhD, Assistant Professor, Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • September 24, 2021: "Short-wave Infrared Optical Imaging in Small Animal Models of Cancer," presented by Mark Pierce, PhD
  • October 1, 2021: "Autologous Vascular Regeneration for Peripheral Artery Disease with Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells," presented by Bin Jiang, PhD, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Vascular Surgery, Northwestern University
  • October 8, 2021: "Understanding Airway Movement Through CFD Simulations of Respiratory Airflow Based on Cine MRI," presented by Alister Bated, PhD, Cincinnati Children's Hospital
  • October 15, 2021: "Metabolic and Mechanical Determinants of Reserve Cardiac Power Output (What Determines Exercise Capacity?)," presented by Daniel Beard, PhD, Professor, Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Michigan
  • October 29, 2021: "Inorganic Nanoparticles for Multi-engergy X-ray Imaging and Therapeutics," presented by David Cormode, PhD, University of Pennsylvania
  • November 5, 2021: "Neuroaugmentation in the Context of Peripheral Nerve Injury and Repair," presented by Christopher Pawela, PhD, Medical College of Wisconsin
  • November 12, 2021: "Fluid-Structure Interaction Simulations for Paediatric Heart Valves: Challenges, Solutions and Applications," presented by Harkamaljot "Rocky" S. Kandail, PhD
  • November 19, 2021: "The Wounded Brain: Assessing Function Pre-dementia and Post-concussion," presented by Lauren Sergio, PhD

 

Spring 2021

  • January 29, 2021: "From the Right Heart to the Pulmonary Arteries: a Multi-scale Approach to Understanding Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension," presented by Daniela Valdez-Jasso, PhD, Assistant Professor, Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego 
  • February 12, 2021: "Predicting Growth and Failure of Cardiovascular Soft Tissues," presented by Colleen Witzenburg, PhD, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin
  • February 19, 2021: "Development of Optical Imaging Methods to Assess Tissue Perfusion at the Bedside," presented by Jana Kainerstorfer, PhD, Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
  • February 26, 2021: "Motor Lateralization and Its Role in Stroke Rehabilitation," presented by Shanie Jayasinghe, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar, Movement Neuroscience an Neurorehabilitation, Penn State University
  • March 5, 2021: "Massively Parallel Simulations of Hemodynamics in the Human Vasculature," presented by Amanda Randles, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University
  • March 12, 2021: "Cognitive and Motor-based Biomarkers in Older Adults: Implications for Neurorehabilitation and Neurodegeneration," presented by Sydney Schaefer, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Arizona State University
  • March 19, 2021: "The Role of Mechanical Microenvironment in Bone Metastasis," presented by Maureen Lynch, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Colorado University, Boulder
  • March 26, 2021: "Exploiting the Body's Barriers for Nanomedicine Targeting," presented by Eun Ji Chung, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Southern California
  • April 9, 2021: "Stem Cell Engineering in Liver and Cardiac Applications," presented by Bo Wang, PhD, Assistant Professor, Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • April 16, 2021: "Developing Models and Targeted Therapies for Low Back Pain," presented by Rebecca A. Wachs, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Systems Engineering, University of Nebraska—Lincoln
  • April 23, 2021: "Listening to the Sound of Light to Guide Surgeries," presented by M. A. Lediju Bell, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science, John Hopkins University
  • April 30, 2021: "Engineering from Lab to Clinic," presented by Jennifer Connelly, MD, Neuro-oncologist, Medical College of Wisconsin

 

Fall 2020   

  • September 4, 2020: "Tumor Blood Cell Tracking in Breast Cancer," presented by Maggie Bennewitz, PhD, Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, West Virginia University
  • October 9, 2020: "Discovery Insights for the Development of Calcific Aortic Valve Disease Insights," presented by Joy Lincoln, PhD, Peter Sommerhauser Chair of Quality, Outcomes and Research Professor, Department of Pediatrics, MCW; Director of cardiovascular Research, The Herma Heart Institute, Division of Pediatric Cardiology, Children's Wisconsin
  • October 30, 2020: "Occupant Injury and Response on Oblique-facing Aircraft Seat—A Computational Study," presented by Karthik Somasundaram, Postdoctoral Fellow working under the mentorship of Dr. Frank Pintar, Zablocki VA Medical Center Labs, Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • November 6, 2020: Priyanka Shah-Basak, PhD, Assistant Professor, Neurology, Medical College of Wisconsin
  • November 13, 2020: "Advances in x-ray and CT Imaging Enabled by Academic-Industrial Collaborations," presented by Adam Wang, PhD, Assistant Professor of Radiology, Stanford University
  • November 20, 2020: "Chemobrain Facts and Fictions," presented by Shelli Kesler, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Texas—Austin; Director of Statistical Services, Cain Center for Nursing Research; Co-Chair of Survivorship and Supportive Care Research, LIVESTRONG Cancer Institutes; and Director, Cancer Neuroscience Lab
  • Date Unavailable: "Neurobiological Insights into Nicotine Addiction: Evidence from fMRI Research," presented by Jeffrey Engelmann, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin

 

Spring 2020

  • January 24, 2020: "Tracking the health of the retina with noninvasive imaging: beyond the fundus image," presented by Robert Cooper, PhD, assistant professor, Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • February 28, 2020: "Object Perception in Humans and Machines," presented by Emily Ward, PhD, McPherson Eye Research Institute
  • March 6, 2020: "Patient-Specific Numerical Analysis of Coronary Blood Flow in Children with Intramural Anomalous Aortic Origin of Coronary Arteries," presented by Atefeh Razavi, PhD.

 

Fall 2019   

  • October 4, 2019: "Advancing Neurorehabilitation for Children and Infants with Stroke: Non-invasive Brain Stimulation to Assess Modulate the Developing Brain," presented by Sam Nemanich, PhD, MSCI
  • October 11, 2019: Using Computational Neuroscience to Uncover the Brain Mechanisms Subserving Human Behavior, presented by Adam S. Greenberg, PhD, Association Professor, Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • October 25, 2019: "Ankle Joint Complex Kinematics following Surgical Intervention in Patients with End-stage Ankle Osteoarthritis," presented by Amy Lenz, PhD
  • November 8, 2019: "Biomarkers for the acute and cumulative effects of sport-related concussion," presented by Timothy Meier, PhD, Department of Neurosurgery, Medical College of Wisconsin
  • November 22, 2019: "mHealth Projects," presented by Sheikh Iqbal Ahamed, PhD
  • December 6, 2019: "Technology in MS care—An Opportunity to Make an Impact," presented by Ahmed Obeidat, MD, PhD

 

Spring 2019

  • January 25, 2019: "Endothelialization of Implantable Cardiovascular Devices by Magnetic Cell Targeting," presented by Brandon Tefft, PhD, associate professor, Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • February 8, 2019: "Advancing MRI Techniques for Spinal Cord Injury," presented by Matthew Budde, PhD, associate professor, Department of Neurosurgery, Medical College of Wisconsin
  • February 22, 2019: "Finite Element Modeling of Human Lower Leg Impacts: Development and Applications," presented by Carolyn Hampton, PhD, professor emerita, Department of Biology, ECU
  • March 8, 2019: "Tissue Engineering Applications of an Amnion-based Barrier Membrane," presented by Bo Wang, PhD, Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • April 12, 2019: "Learning and Error in Human-Machine Interfaces," presented by Zachary Danziger, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine