Angelique Vela (2022-2023)

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Angelique Vela 
Electrical & Computer Engineering
avela1@ufl.edu | LinkedIn
Engineering the neuronal response to
electrical microstimulation/ULTRASTIM

Angelique completed her BS in Electrical Engineering at the University of Florida in 2022. Her interest in the electrical stimulation of stem cells from her undergraduate research experience with Dr. Erin Patrick led her to pursue graduate research with Dr. Kevin Otto working on the electrical stimulation of neural units. Currently, she is a PhD student in Dr. Otto’s Neuroprostheses Research Lab collaborating with an interdisciplinary team to engineer neural interfaces, specifically, multi-channel implantable microdevices in both the central and peripheral nervous systems.

Anastasia Valimaki (2019-2020)

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Jesus Penaloza (2017-2019)

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Jesus Peñaloza
Masters Student
Biomedical Engineering
jesus.penalozaa@ufl.edu
LinkedIn Profile
Twitter (@jesusdpa1)
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Jesús Peñaloza received his B.S degree in Electronic Engineering at the University Nueva Esparta in Venezuela. After developing an intelligent helmet capable of detecting accidents and sending information to the authorities for a fast response in his B.S. degree, he decided to pursue a M.S degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University Simón Bolívar, and Advance Study Diplomas on Business Management and Innovation at the University Metropolitana. In these years he focused his research on epilepsy where he applied signal processing to extract features that could be used to develop fast detection systems that could help reduce the cost and time of diagnosis for patients in 3rd world countries.

Currently he is a 2nd year master student in the Biomedical Engineering department at the University Florida. In this moment he is working in two main projects. The first one, understanding the effect of waveforms in the protein adsorption layer at the electrode sites to evaluate the possibility of recovering the electrodes capability. The second one, developing image processing and computer vision algorithms to extract features to understand the relation between the neural system and type 1 diabetes.

He plans on pursuing a PhD and hopes to continue his learning and contribution on the neural engineering research area.

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Valdimir Talley III (2017-2019)

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Valdimir Talley III (JT)
Masters student
Biomedical Engineering
talleyv3@ufl.edu
Neural Integration and Drug Delivery

[expand title=”Read more”] Valdimir Talley received his bachelors of science through the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University in 2015. His undergraduate capstone work was the result of a Weldon School and Global Engineering Program (GEP) supported independent study abroad and site visit to a clinic in Guatemala under the organization Range of Motion Project (R.O.M.P). The capstone project focused on improving mechanical prosthetic-patient interactions, specifically in rural settings. He is currently pursuing his masters in biomedical engineering (BME) at the University of Florida with an interest in improving prosthetic-patient interactions through neural integration and drug delivery. [/expand]

Min Yusufali (2018)

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Minhal Yusufali (Min)
Masters Student
Biomedical Engineering
muhammady@ufl.edu

[expand title=”Read more”]Minhal Yusufali received his B.S. in Chemistry with an emphasis in biochemistry from the University of Florida in 2016. During his undergraduate program, he worked on neuroscience research under Drs. Kenneth Heilman and John Williamson. Later he joined Dr. Carlos Rinaldi’s lab to work on magnetically triggered drug release with magnetic composite nanocarriers (MCNCs) and completed his honors thesis.

Currently, Min is a graduate assistant for the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University and is pursuing a master’s in biomedical engineering. He works with both invasive and noninvasive neural interfaces under Drs. Kevin Otto and Janis Daly. Within NPR lab, he is interested in peripheral nerve regeneration, growth, and stimulation with the use of tissue-electrode interfaces. His individual work focuses on dip coating methods for polyimide with the goal of in vivo drug delivery to promote biocompatibility and axonal regeneration.

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Jake Rieke (2015-2016)

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jake-rieke-100x133Jake Rieke 
M.S. Student
Biomedical Engineering
jrieke@ufl.edu
[expand title=”Read more”]Jake received a B.S. in biomedical engineering at the University of Florida with a specialization in neural engineering. He has previously worked on analysis of EEG and fMRI signals for brain-computer interface (BCI) applications. Currently, He is pursuing a M.S. in biomedical engineering from the University of Florida. His research interests include neuroprosthetics and exploring interactions at the tissue-device interface.
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Karthick Nalladevan (2015)

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Karthick Nalladevan
M.S. student
Biomedical engineering
karthick.raja@ufl.edu
Karthick completed his B.E. in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering in 2015, and is now pursuing M.S. in Biomedical engineering from University of Florida.He has previously worked on performance analysis of neural networks in diagnosing neurological disorders.

Ishani Thakkar (2015)

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ishani-thakkar-100x133Ishani Thakkar
M.S. student
Biomedical engineering
ithakkar@ufl.edu
Neural engineering 
[expand title=”Read more”]Ishani completed her bachelor of engineering in Electronics and Communication in 2014 and is now pursuing an MS degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Florida. Her research interest is neural engineering for neurodegenerative disorders and disabilities. She wants to contribute to research that can be successfully translated into clinical trials and be proven viable for effective use.[/expand]