July, 2017:
- Kate Finn wrapped up her SROP summer research with our lab by giving a great talk and poster presentation at the SROP Symposium.
- The lab’s collaborative work on a new electrode device was included on a College of Engineering Research photography list – and by itself.
June, 2017:
- We had a lab outing for paintball, and had a blast! This time we invited a couple of other neural engineering labs for a big group event.
- Our second year doing a Xplore Engineering workshop was led by Lauren, with participation from other lab members and students in other labs. Again the kids had fun using Backyard Brains kits to learn about neural engineering! A COE photographer visited for one of the sessions, taking a set of pictures.
- The lab went out to lunch to send off long-time members Chris Stephan and Indie Rice.
May, 2017:
- A College of Engineering photographer visited our lab for some candid pictures.
- Lauren Zimmerman received a Rackham Graduate Student Grant.
- Lauren co-organized the 2nd annual BME basketball tournament, which grew to a 4-on-4 7-team tourney including players from other departments. “Somehow” Dr. Bruns was again on the winning team!
April, 2017:
- Lab members Anastasia Ostrowski, Chris Stephan, Indie Rice, and Alex Mundorf, and their teams, presented their BME Class Design projects at the Engineering Design Expo. The BME photographer captured them in action, as well as Dr. Bruns a few times.
- Micah Levy received a Underwood-Alger Scholarship, for undergraduates majoring in biological sciences.
- For her, now primary, research in engineering education, Anastasia wrapped up her M.S. by writing and defending a M.S. thesis, on “Individual and Course Structure Effects on Engineering Design Processes “!
- Congratulations to Lauren Zimmerman, who officially became a BME PhD candidate after completing her Qualifying Exam!
- Congratulations to our many lab graduates! Henry Hilow, Anastasia Ostrowski, Chris Stephan, and Lauren Zimmerman all received their M.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering. Alex Mundorf, Dhara Patel, and Indie Rice finished their B.S. in Biomedical Engineering.
- The NSF posted a news release on all NSF CAREER award winners, putting us “on the map.”
March, 2017:
- Indie Rice was awarded a NSF GRFP! Here is a BME news story on the awardees from the department. She will be attending MIT in the fall.
- We had a paper accepted at the Journal of Neural Engineering, “Chronic monitoring of lower urinary tract activity via a sacral dorsal root ganglia interface” with lab authors Abeer Khurram, Shani Ross, Zach Sperry, Aileen Ouyang, Chris Stephan, Ahmad Jiman, and Tim Bruns.
- Our lab participated in a multi-weekend class through DAPCEP, showing high school kids engineering principals. For our Saturday, we guided the students through planning a neuroprosthesis controller using Backyard Brains kits and their muscles. At the end, we gave them all Michigan-themed brains, created by Ahmad and painted by Lauren (and modeled here by lab teachers Chris, Ahmad, Aileen, Zach, & Lauren).
February, 2017:
- We said farewell, and congratulations to postdoc Shani Ross, who started as an Instructor with the Bioengineering Department at George Mason University.
- Dr. Bruns learned of a new grant for the lab, as he is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award, which will start in July. Here are a BME news story and College of Engineering story on the award.
January, 2017:
- Congratulations to Aileen Ouyang, who officially became a BME PhD candidate after completing all requirements for her Qualifying Exam!
November, 2016:
- Congratulations to Ahmad Jiman, who officially became a BME PhD candidate after completing all requirements for his Qualifying Exam!
- We had a busy Society for Neuroscience conference, with seven lab posters! Shani Ross, Ahmad Jiman, Lauren Zimmerman, Aileen Ouyang, and Indie Rice all had a poster, and Zach Sperry had two posters. It was a fun time in San Diego.
September, 2016:
- We became a fashionable lab, getting lab t-shirts! This was in celebration of our lab’s first publication.
August, 2016:
- Congratulations to Zach Sperry, who officially became a BME PhD candidate after completing all requirements for his Qualifying Exam!
- We had a fun lab event, playing whirlyball. What is whirlyball? A combination of bumper cars, jai-alai, and basketball!
- Dr. Bruns was a co-chair of a minisymposium on Emerging Technologies in Bladder Neuroprostheses at the IEEE EMBC meeting in Orlando.
It was a great session, with talks from leaders in the field.
July, 2016:
July was a little quieter.
- Congrats to Zach Ricca in wrapping up his SROP experience in the lab with an excellent poster session.
- We were very excited to have our first lab paper accepted, at BMC Neuroscience, with Shani Ross, Zach Sperry, Colin Mahar, and Dr. Bruns as authors.
June, 2016:
June was quite busy, with a lot of activities.
- Shani Ross and Lauren Zimmerman were both awarded Diversity Travel Awards to attend the upcoming NANS2-NIC meeting in Baltimore. In addition to Shani and Lauren, Aileen Ouyang and Zach Sperry will also be presenting posters.
- For June 13th and 14th we had four posters at the NSF-supported International Conference for Advanced Neurotechnology, held at the University of Michigan. At this posting, they have all of the talks archived on video, which came from a stellar group of well-known researchers.
- On June 23rd and 24th Zach Sperry led a College of Engineering Xplore Engineering Summer Camp workshop for kids of alumni. Many in the lab also helped out, in addition to other students in the neural engineering community, and we had a lot of fun. Our session used Backyard Brains kits to teach kids about talking to nerves. Here are links to the official flickr photo streams from Thursday (first, second, third sessions) and Friday (first, second, third sessions).
- At the end of June we attended the joint North America Neuromodulation Society – Neural Interfaces Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Bruns gave a couple of short talks on one day and Shani Ross, Lauren Zimmerman, Aileen Ouyang, and Zach Sperry all had busy poster presentations.
April, 2016:
It has been another month with a lot of exciting news.
- Anastasia Ostrowski was awarded a Whitaker International Fellowship. She intends to start in June, 2017, working in Switzerland. Awesome!
- Aileen Ouyang was awarded a Rackham Summer Award to support her research in our lab. Congrats!
- Colin Mahar has excelled in his “other” life while a student: as a varsity athlete on the Men’s Gymnastics team performing Still Rings. After finishing fourth at the Big Ten Championships, Colin excelled at the National Championships, finishing third to garner All-American status. Wow!
- Zach Sperry also has kept busy outside the lab and classroom, and was part of the Life Sciences Orchestra at the university. Their second play of the year was excellent!
- Aileen Ouyang and Zach Sperry received a Rackham Graduate Student Grant.
- And congratulations to Colin Mahar, Anastasia Ostrowski, and Christ Stephan for graduating with their B.S. degrees and to Zach Sperry for receiving his M.S. degree!
March, 2016:
This was a busy month for lab news.
- Ahmad Jiman received a Rackham Graduate Student Grant.
- Indie Rice was accepted as a scholar in the NSF-supported International Program for the Advancement of Neurotechnology (IPAN), to do research in Germany for the upcoming summer.
- Aileen Ouyang was accepted into the University of Michigan BME PhD program.
- Colin Mahar was accepted into the University of Texas at Dallas PhD program.
- Anastasia Ostrowski was featured in a University of Michigan article on Wolverine Women to Watch in 2016 for her entrepreneurial activities.
February, 2016:
At the BME Career Day, Indie Rice was recognized for the Best Overall poster presentation and Anastasia Ostrowski was recognized for the Best Research Poster presentation.
November, 2015:
Our lab was joined with three other research groups across campus, in getting funded by the University of Michigan MCubed program. We are looking forward to some exciting results in this novel proposal.
October 17-21, 2015:
The lab was well represented at the Society for Neuroscience annual conference in Chicago, Illinois. Abeer Khurram, Shani Ross, and Zach Sperry all had active poster sessions, with support from co-authors Ahmad Jiman and Colin Mahar.
There was also plenty of time for lab activities outside the conference, with poster authors also joined by Lauren Zimmerman and Seth Ringel.
October 7-10, 2015:
Dr. Bruns attended the Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Fall Meeting, in Tampa, Florida. Anastasia Ostrowski, Indie Rice, and Chris Stephan also attended and did great jobs at presenting their posters.
September, 2015:
Our lab was thrilled to receive official notification that we were one of 12 U18 projects funded by the new NIH Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions (SPARC) program. The goal of our project, in collaboration with EECS colleagues Euisik Yoon and John Seymour, is to develop a novel electrode interface for exploring bladder neural control. In the table below, from the SPARC website, our project is the black box in the upper left.
September, 2015:
At the annual BME Graduate Student retreat, Zach Sperry was recognized with the first Derek Tat Memorial Award for First-Year PhD Student Excellence.
August 31, 2015:
The lab, joined by two EECS colleagues, had a blast paintballing at Futureball north of Ann Arbor. It was a great teambuilding event that we look forward to repeating.
August, 2015:
The lab is honored to be among the eleven university projects awarded with a grant from the MiBrain Initiative, for Seed Funding for Innovative Projects in Neuroscience. The MiBrain Initiative is described in this University Record article, and all funded projects are listed on this webpage.
Congrats to Zach Sperry for being accepted into the university’s Translational Research Education Certificate (TREC) program. Also, Indie Rice was notified that her abstract was accepted for the Undergraduate Research track at the Biomedical Engineering Society conference in October.
July, 2015:
It was a good month of news for the lab!
- Dr. Bruns and the lab were thrilled to start work on the 2nd and 3rd grant-supported projects in the lab. An NIH NIBIB R21 and a Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research pilot grant both started this month.
- Anastasia Ostrowski and Chris Stephan were notified that their Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) conference abstracts were accepted for posters for the October meeting. Dr. Bruns will be a neural interfaces platform session co-chair at the meeting.
- Kaile Bennett was notified that her abstract to the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science (AALAS) conference in November was accepted for a poster.
- And, in the last week of July, Dr. Bruns was notified that two more grants that may be starting soon!
June, 2015:
Abeer Khurram, Shani Ross, and Zach Sperry all were notified that their Society for Neuroscience (SfN) conference abstracts were accepted for posters at the October meeting.
May, 2015:
Congratulations to Ahmad Jiman and Abeer Khurram for graduating with their Master’s degrees in Biomedical Engineering. Below are some pictures from Ahmad’s time at graduation festivities.
Also congratulations to Indie Rice and Chris Stephan for receiving SURE fellowships to perform undergraduate research in the lab for the summer.
Spring, 2015:
Dr. Bruns and Shani are featured in a picture collage about the Biointerfaces Institute, as part of the NCRC 2014 Annual Report.
March, 2015:
Congratulations to Abeer Khurram for being awarded a Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant.
January, 2015:
The lab is excited to start work on its first externally funded project. We are thankful to the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation for providing support.
December, 2014:
Congratulations to Matt Biggers for being awarded a Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant and for graduating with his Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering.
November, 2014:
The lab attended Neuroscience 2014 in Washington, D.C. (November 15 to 19). Three posters were presented. One by Shani Ross on “Targeting sacral dorsal root ganglia for concurrent monitoring and control of bladder function via electrical stimulation”, another by Sai Rajagopalan on “Potential of neural-network based modeling of bladder pressure from sacral dorsal root ganglia recordings”, and a third by John Bentley on “Identification of bladder afferent types with multielectrode arrays in sacral dorsal root ganglia.”
June 24, 2014:
The lab attended the 41st Neural Interfaces Conference in Dallas, Texas (June 23 to 25). Two posters were presented. One by John Bentley on “Identifying subpopulations of bladder afferents with a sacral dorsal root ganglia microelectrode array interface” and another by Shani Ross on “Development of a closed-loop bladder control neuroprosthesis using a sacral dorsal root ganglia interface”.
June 1, 2014:
Shani Ross was notified of receiving a Diversity Travel Award to attend the upcoming Neural Interfaces Conference in Dallas. Congrats Shani!
April 5, 2014:
BME undergraduate student Anastasia Ostrowski presented the first conference poster from the lab, on “Dorsal root ganglion cell density analysis for microelectrode array development” at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Lexington, Kentucky. Co-authors were Shani Ross and Tim Bruns.
Late December, 2013:
The lab was ready for move-in, after several months of prep and remodeling. Thanks to other facilities at NCRC, we had already collected data.
September 3, 2013:
The lab officially began as Dr. Bruns started his first day as an Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering department. Initial core lab members were Kaile Bennett, John Bentley and Shani Ross. Matt Biggers, Anastasia Ostrowski and Brij Patel joined soon thereafter, as part-time researchers.
