Institute for Biology, Engineering and Medicine (I-BEAM)

5 Theses Defended Before the Start of the 2021 Spring Semester

Two PhD students and three master's students defended their theses this winter. Their graduate degrees will be conferred in February. Congratulations to the new graduates!

Five students portrait in a grid with a green square
(top row) PhD students David Xing and Marc Powell
(bottom row) ScM students Dinithi Silva-Sassaman, Grace Choi, and Itzel Aponte

David Xing, PhD
Borton Lab

Understanding the Role of M1 in Locomotion Population Dynamics and Applications to Brain Machine Interfaces

David has been a valuable member of the Borton lab since it was first established in 2014. If you caught David between his waking hours of 11 am and 3 am, he was always willing to help you work through your research problems and lend a helping hand. His sassy jokes often came out of nowhere, but always hit the mark and were always very appreciated. He will no doubt go on to do amazing things in his career and we wish him all the best! You will be missed David! - The Borton Lab

Marc Powell, PhD
Borton Lab

Distributed Wireless Neural Interfaces for the Study of Sensorimotor Dynamics and Other Phenomena of the Nervous System

Marc is a man of many talents, including but not limited to: animal training, circuit design, coding, teaching, photography, and cooking. Marc was always ready to drop what he was doing to help a lab-mate through a difficult problem or share relevant knowledge nuggets. His presence during lab lunches, troubleshooting in the Carney workshop, and overall determined spirit will be missed. We can't wait to see all the amazing things Marc will accomplish next. We will miss you, Marc! -Borton Lab

Dinithi Silva-Sassaman, ScM
Huang Lab

Using the Remotion Plus Platform to Predict Emotion and Attention State from Smartphone Behavioral Data in Remote Usability Tests

Grace Choi, ScM
Crisco Lab

Head Impact Exposure in Football: Comparing Youth to Collegiate Players

Itzel Aponte, ScM
Colvin Lab

Moving Nanoparticles with Magnets: How Diameter and Composition Affects Magnetophoresis