2023 NSF CAREER Awards
Tipirneni-Sajja and Herickhoff have been awarded prestigious CAREERs as NSF funds magnetic imaging and neuroimaging opportunities.
Dr. Aaryani Tipirneni-Sajja, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, was recently awarded a 5-year Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for $730,629 for the project entitled “Open-Access, Real-Time High-Throughput Metabolomics for High-Field and Benchtop NMR for Biological Inquiry.”
Sajja is a biomedical scientist with expertise in developing quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (NMR) techniques that will noninvasively identify disease biomarkers, enable early diagnosis, and guide response to therapy. She has published 23 journal articles with 1400+ citations, over 45 conference abstracts, and one book chapter in this field. Sajja has served as a Principal Investigator on an NIH Trailblazer Award and internal university grants and a Co-investigator on some federal and external institutional grants.
In addition to excelling as an independent research investigator, she received the 2022 Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award from the College of Engineering in recognition of her dedicated teaching efforts and serves as a K-12 Outreach Chair for the Society of Women Engineers, Memphis.
Dr. Carl Herickhoff, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, will receive a $593,248 Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER Award) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his proposal “ Super-Resolution 3D Ultrasound Imaging of Brain Activity.”
The research advancements in Herickhoff’s CAREER proposal will create a new volumetric neuroimaging paradigm to be widely disseminated among the neuroscience research community. This innovative platform will include novel transducer hardware and signal-processing algorithms—with drastically reduced channel count and associated system cost—to help elucidate neurobiological processes and neuropathologist, leading to the accelerated development of effective interventions and therapies.
The proposal’s integrated educational and outreach plan is focused on sharing specific knowledge and broadly increasing interest and engagement with imaging technology. The planned program includes three educational activities, with participants ranging from graduate and professional levels to middle school students. The activities include developing and refining courses and curriculum paths in imaging and ultrasound research, creating a seminar series to disseminate ultrasound neuroimaging methods and learnings, and facilitating new K-12 Engineering programs and interactive outreach workshops.
If you have questions or further interest in Open-Access, Real-Time High-Throughput Metabolomics for High-Field and Benchtop NMR for Biological, you can contact Sajja at Aaryani.Sajja@memphis.edu.
For more information on the Biomedical Engineering program, reach out to the Research Development at researchdev@memphis.edu.