RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
Intel Corporation / Packaging R&D Engineer (May 2022 – Present)
Provided technical support to the SPTD team to solve real-world, industry-scale packaging problems.
University of Pennsylvania / Postdoctoral Researcher (Jan 2021 – Apr 2022)
Performed experimental and computational research on acute and chronic traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Experimental Research:
• Axonal Injury: Performed in vitro axonal injury experimentation on rodent cortical neuron which included plating, cell culturing, fixing, staining, and fluorescence imaging of rodent cortical neuron.
• Review Studies: Performed comprehensive literature review on Microtubule Associated Protein (MAP) 6, brain midline structure abnormalities associated with septum pellucidum (SP), tau astrogliopathy (TAGP), and death of sulci due to traumatic brain injury (TBI), which provides significant insight into different aspects of brain injury and abnormalities.
• Grant Writing: Contributed significantly to multiple grants and grant renewals awarded by National Institute of Health (NIH) to provide novel insight into acute and chronic TBI.
Computational Research:
• Amyloid beta-NAA docking and MD Simulation: Performed molecular docking and molecular dynamics studies on amyloid beta and NAA to determine their contribution to axonal dynamics and biochemical behavior.
• MAP6 docking and MD Simulation: Performed molecular docking and molecular dynamics studies on MAP6 to determine their structural and functional contribution to axonal stability.
The University of Texas at Arlington / Graduate Research Assistant (Aug 2016 – Dec 2020)
Developed computational models of axonal cytoskeletal components (tau protein and neurofilaments) by using molecular dynamics simulation, which leads to comprehensive model of brain axon.
Experimental Research:
• SEM imaging of tau protein: Performed SEM imaging of lyophilized tau protein to extract nanoscale structure in Hitachi S-3000N Variable Pressure SEM machine. The sample is then compared with computationally produced structure, which leads to comprehensive brain axon model.
• Grant Writing: Contributed significantly to multiple grants and grant renewals awarded by Office of Naval Research (ONR) to provide novel insight into modeling cellular biology of brain susceptible to blast-induced injury and mechanical behavior of axonal cytoskeletal components.
Computational Research:
• Review on computational approaches on neural cytoskeletal components: Successfully highlighted two crucial limitations in the computational studies on sub-axonal components over the last few decades, which leads to four follow-up molecular dynamics (MD) simulation studies.
• Strain rate dependent behavior of tau protein: Determined mechanical behavior of single tau, dimerized tau, and tau-microtubule interaction by using MD simulation which leads to enhancement of existent axonal model.
• Phosphorylation effect on tau protein: Determined mechano-chemical behavior of single tau, dimerized tau, tau-microtubule interaction, and tau accumulation tendency based on domain-focused and residue-focused phosphorylation by using MD simulation, which leads to critical insight into regulating parameters of unique tau behavior.
• Strain rate dependent behavior of neurofilaments: Determined mechanical behavior of light and heavy isoforms of neurofilaments by using MD simulation, which leads to enhancement of existent axonal models.
• Viscoelastic modeling of tau protein and neurofilaments: Successfully characterized tau protein and neurofilament based on their viscoelastic relaxation response by using MD simulation, which leads to complete insight into mechanical properties of sub-axonal components.
• Strain rate dependent behavior of actin and spectrin: Determined mechanical behavior of actin, spectrin, and actin-spectrin interaction when subjected to high strain rate by using MD simulation leading to novel insight into their failure criteria.
• Continuum scale brain modeling: Implemented Finite Element Analysis (FEM) on human brain model to detect critical regions susceptible to injury which will lead to continuum scale model of brain.
The University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute / Biomedical Research Intern (May 2017 – August 2017)
• Performed experiment to determine friction coefficient of customized seat model for patients with localized injury.
• Performed successful FEA analysis to determine the reliability of damage-sensitive seat cushion prototype.