Vita
I am currently a graduate student in Biomedical Engineering. I graduated from UCLA with Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 2001.
Research
My project is to construct a hydrogel based pH sensor. Hydrogel is a polymer network that can expand and shrink in response to external stimulations. Mechanically, hydrogels exhibit both rubber-like elastic and viscoelastic behaviors. They respond to stresses quickly and recover fully from deformations up to three orders of magnitude. It is a prefect candidate for microfluidic device application. However, the present hydrogel shows lagging in time response for 175 second due to its limitation in diffusion rate of polymer network (Sheppard, 1995). This biocompatible pH sensor could be used to control and monitor microenvironment in cell mimetic study for CMISE. The overall goal of this project is to incorporate engineering components into biological systems. I am currently involved in developing the techniques for generating the environment required for the study using pH sensitive hydrogel.
While I was undergraduate researcher in Dr. Ho's group, I did researche on the use of dielectrophoresis force in the attraction and repulsion of enzymes. I investigated noise signal analysis in various solutions and its uniformity and variability of different workings of the same silicon wafer for electrochemical detection of DNA.
Work Experience
Genefludics Inc. Jan. -Sept. 2002
- Analyzed different enzyme and substrate concentrations to determine the optimal signal of biosensor
- Studied the effect of applying the biosensor to self-assembled monolayer (SAM)
Lucent Technologies Summer intern, 2000
- Introduced and developed Multi-Skill Certification Program Study- intended to establish a system for employee evaluation and certification.
- Gathered and organized list of Internet Service Providers in Taiwan for marketing research purposes in Network Planning and Developing Department.
Extracurriculars
- Publicity, Biomedical Engineering Society, UCLA 2003-2004
- First Year Representative, Biomedical Engineering Society, UCLA 2002- 2003
- Senior Representative, Engineering Society University of California, Los Angeles, 2001
Contact Info
Phone: 310-825-8275
Email: shannon@cmise.ucla.edu