Brittany Scheid, PhD
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Brittany's research is focused on improving electrical neurostimulation therapy for patients with epilepsy by combining modeling techniques from the field of control theory with clinical insights and intracranial device recordings. She is currently interested in finding biomarkers that can better guide neurostimulator placement and algorithms for intervention.
Post-doctorate Fellow
John's focus is on developing computational tools to improve the care of neurosurgical patients. These efforts include developing quantitative biomarkers that can localize the epileptogenic zone and potentially guide epilepsy surgery, as well as systems for automating the analysis of scalp EEG in the neurocritical care unit. To accomplish these goals, John and collaborators leverage methods from graph theory, machine learning, and quantitative neuroimaging. His current project aims to better understand the manifestations of epilepsy in the brain’s underlying activity and connectivity using an intracranial EEG atlas they have developed.
Nishant Sinha, PhD
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Nishant’s research interest is in understanding brain organization in health and disease. He focuses on mapping and understanding epileptic networks. Clinically, these epileptic networks are disrupted by therapies such as brain surgery, stimulation, or pharmacotherapy. He studies why some patients recover fully after therapy while others do not. Nishant makes virtual models of the human brain by combining neuroimaging,
electrophysiology, and routinely collected patient data. These virtual brains are individualized representations of a patient, calibrated by their data, and provide a testbed for clinical experimentation. Nishant studies how the brain networks reorganize due to therapy and makes predictions that complement clinical decision-making.
Mehrnaz Mojtabavi, PhD
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Mehrnaz’s research interest is using multidisciplinary techniques to design, develop, and validate novel biosensors and bioelectronics to directly improve the quality of life and patient outcomes through translational approaches. In the Vitale lab, her work focuses on disseminating novel human-scale devices based on nanomaterials, such as MXenes, for studying, diagnosing, and treating neurological disorders with the focus on addressing clinician and patient needs and the goal of translating them into full-scale technologies.
Raghav Garg, PhD
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Raghav’s research interests lie in investigating the bioelectronic basis of neurological and muscular function in both healthy and diseased states. His current research focuses on developing novel input-output bioelectronic platforms for understanding and modulating neuronal and muscular electrophysiology. His work involves a multidisciplinary approach that combines materials, electronic, and biomedical engineering for clinically translation of the developed bioelectronics.
Brendan Murphy, PhD
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Brendan's primary focuses lie in the design, fabrication, and characterization of wearable biopotential recording devices based on the highly conductive 2D nanomaterial titanium carbide MXene (Ti3C2Tx). His published work includes an MXene-based high-density surface electromyography (HDsEMG) array for improved EMG recording compared to clinical standards. His current research explores MXene-based electrodes for electrocardiography (ECG), with a specific focus on benchmarking their performance under motion artifact tasks compared to state-of-the-art clinical electrodes. Much of Brendan's work incorporates traditional materials science and electrochemical characterization techniques, such as Raman spectroscopy, XRD, impedance spectroscopy, and cyclic voltammetry.