Profiles
Enakshi Sunassee (Chambers Fellow) I am a first year Ph.D. student in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Duke University. I graduated with summa cum laude from the University of South Florida with a BS in Chemical Engineering in 2019. As part of my undergraduate research experience at the Moffitt Cancer Center, I contributed to the development of a novel mathematical biomarker which uses patient-specific radiological data prior to and during therapy to adaptively personalize radiotherapy. Additionally, in my junior year I was one of the selected applicants for the Deutscher Akademischer Austauchdienst (German Academic Exchange Program) Rise scholarship, where I spent the Summer of 2018 at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule in Aachen, Germany. I developed a new framework in C++ to predict ablated zones in hepatic tumors. I come from Mauritius, a developing country off the coast of Africa and I am highly motivated to translate my research findings to impact medical diagnostics in low resource settings. At Duke, I am working in Dr. Nimmi Ramanujam’s lab in the hope of developing point of care techniques to enhance cancer diagnostics in low income countries.
Adriana Stohn (Chambers Fellow) is a first year Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. Adriana graduated from the University of Arizona in 2019 with a B.S. in Optical Sciences and Engineering, accompanied by minors in electrical and computer engineering, mathematics, and Spanish. During her undergraduate studies, she was a member of Dr. Russell Chipman’s Polarization Laboratory where she worked on integrating polarization sensing into computer vision systems. Adriana has also spent two summers as a mathematics research intern at Sandia National Laboratories under the supervision of Dr. Edward Jimenez. While at Sandia Labs, she worked on modelling a spectral computed tomography system. In her free time Adriana is motivated to instill confidence in young women to pursue daunting challenges. In the final year of her undergraduate, she led a Girls Who Code club and taught high school girls from around her community how to code. At Duke, Adriana is working with Dr. Michael Gehm, investigating correlations in optical fields to forward imaging technology.
Jessica Loo (Chambers Scholar) is a third year Ph.D. student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. She graduated with first class honors from Imperial College London with an MEng in Biomedical Engineering. At Duke University, she works under the guidance of Dr. Sina Farsiu in the Vision and Image Processing Laboratory. Her research is focused on developing automatic algorithms for medical image analysis, primarily for ophthalmic imaging modalities such as optical coherence tomography (OCT) and slit-lamp photography (SLP). Her most recent work is the development of algorithms for the automatic segmentation of photoreceptor defects on retinal OCT images and biomarkers of microbial keratitis on SLP images, which can provide quantitative data for diagnosing and monitoring ophthalmic diseases.
Betul Teymur (Chambers Scholar) is currently a fourth year PhD student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Material Science under the supervision of Dr. David Mitzi. In 2013, she obtained her cum laude BS degree in Energy System Engineering and also in Mechanical Engineering Department in Turkey. During her master’s study, she analyzed nanofluid flow in nonisothermal channel using a pseudo spectral method under the guidance of Prof. Coskun Ozalp. Her main professional focus has since been the design of renewable energy systems and their economic analysis, and she has worked on a variety of such initiatives, including small-scale solar power conversion system for supplying electricity and hot water. At Duke, Betul is developing an environmentally friendly solution processing approach for a family of chalcogenide solar absorber materials with the purpose of understanding how detailed processing conditions impact film’s optoelectronic properties to obtain high-performance photovoltaic(PV)/photoelectrochemical(PEC) devices. Betul’s recently published work demonstrates the viability of her facile solution processing approach for depositing thin films of an earth-abundant Cu2BaSnSxSe4-x (CBTSSe) chalcogenide for solar devices. Currently, she pursues detailed studies to understand performance limitations of these films in PV/PEC devices and their association with various device layers for efficiency enhancement of low-cost, defect-tolerant chalcogenide solar absorber materials.
Shan Yang (Chambers Scholar) is a fourth year Ph.D. student in Department of Mechanical engineering and materials science. She graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and earned her master’s degree from Northwestern University. With more than 5 years of experiences in computational materials science, her research is focusing on understanding quasi-particle interaction effects on light response, thermal transport properties of potential photovoltaic and thermoelectric materials. Investigating atomic vibrations and electron-phonon coupling in sub-picosecond time-scale under ultrafast laser pulse through simulations is another critical part of her research, which is essential for interpreting pump-probe X-ray scattering signals, rationalizing and ultimately controlling materials properties.