2023 Lab News

11/2024 Our paper entitled "Three-dimensional-printed headcap with embedded microdrive system for customizable multi-region brain recordings with neural probes" got accepted and published in Frontiers in Neuroscience. 

10/2024 The study MINI lab involves in was presented as a poster entitled "Subcellular Carbon Fiber Electrodes for Intracortical Neural Recording: Towards Large Animal Models" at SfN Neuroscience 2024 conference in Chicago, IL.

10/2024 Prof. Lei Chen delivered a seminar at UMass Lowell Department of Biomedical Engineering entitled "Automatic Fabrication and Deep Implantation of the Next Generation Brain Machine Interfaces".

09/2024 Our paper entitled "Design, fabrication, and implantation of invasive microelectrode arrays as in vivo brain machine interfaces: A comprehensive review" got accepted and published in Journal of Manufacturing Processes. 

09/2024 Our paper entitled "An Experimental Study of Incremental Buckling-Resistant Inchworm-Type Insertion of Microwire Neural Electrodes" got accepted and published in ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering. 

07/2024 Prof. Lei Chen visited Zhejiang University and gave an invited seminar in the School of Mechanical Engineering entitled "Automatic Fabrication and Deep Implantation of the Next Generation Brain Machine Interfaces".

07/2024 We welcome Gladys Ruiz and Jennifer Abdou, Junior and Senior students from Dracut High School, to join the MINI Lab for summer research through the Professional Research Opportunities to Prepare for Engineering and Life Sciences (PROPEL) program at UMass Lowell, thanks to the sponsorship by the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.

06/2024 At NAMRC 52 conference hosted by University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Prof. Lei Chen was awarded the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) 2024 Susan Smyth Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award! Since 1980, the SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award has recognized manufacturing engineers, age 35 or younger, who have made exceptional contributions and accomplishments in the manufacturing industry.

06/2024 Prof. Lei Chen and Dongyang Yi attended the ASME International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC 2024) and SME North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC 52) hosted by University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Dongyang presented our conference paper entitled "An Experimental Study of Incremental Buckling-Resistant Inchworm-Type Insertion of Microwire Neural Electrodes", which has been honored and fast-tracked as a journal article at ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering.

05/2024 Dominic Kittel joined the Lab as undergraduate research assistants. Welcome!

04/2024 The MECH capstone team supervised by Dr. Lei Chen working on "Tip Sharpening Machine for Axis-Symmetric Microelectrode Bundles as Brain-Machine Interface" successfully finished their final presentation and demonstrate their prototype at the Mechanical Engineering Spring 2024 Capstone Showcase! 

04/2023 Two ENGN capstone teams supervised by Dr. Lei Chen working on our funded NIH R15 project entitled ""Development of Low-Cost Automatic Machine for In-House Fabrication of Custom Microwire-Based Microelectrode Arrays for Electrophysiology Recordings" have successfully finished their final presentations. The two teams worked on the automatic carbon fiber placement and custom PCB printing setups correspondingly.

04/2024 Aidan Silva joined the Lab as undergraduate research assistants. Welcome!

04/2024 Palak Sharma from Computer Science joined the Lab as undergraduate research assistants. Welcome!

04/2024 Muhammad Omer Naveed joined the Lab as undergraduate research assistants. Welcome!

03/2023 Our paper entitled "Fabrication and assessment of partial finger prostheses made using 3D-printed molds: A case study" got accepted and published in Prosthetics and Orthotics International. 

02/2023 Abraham Mudoola joined the Lab as undergraduate research assistants. Welcome!

01/2023 John Barron officially joined the MINI Lab as a Ph.D. student. Welcome!

01/2023 We started a new project on ""Hybrid Additive Manufacturing with In Situ Machining" funded by the NSF IUCRC SHAP3D featuring Barnes, Green Tweed, HP, Raytheon, Sandia National Lab, Stratasys, and Markforged as our IAB Mentors.