Lee Fisher - Lee Fisher, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Pittsburgh. He completed his doctoral studies in Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. His PhD work focused on the use of multi-contact stimulating electrodes to restore standing function after spinal cord injury.

Dr. Fisher’s research interests involve the development of neuroprostheses to restore sensory and motor function after neural damage or disease, as well as exploration of the role of somatosensation in maintaining balance control during standing and walking.

Christopher Pulliam - Christopher Pulliam, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University and holds an appointment as a Biomedical Engineer at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center. Before transitioning to academia, Dr. Pulliam established a track record of guiding high-impact projects from conception to commercialization in the medical device industry - in both small startups (Great Lakes NeuroTechnologies) and large global (Medtronic Neuromodulation) companies. Dr. Pulliam was born in Baton Rouge, LA and earned his BS (2006), MS (2010), and PhD (2013) degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.

His main research interest is in the development of new approaches to treating and assessing functional impairments resulting from neurological disease or injury. He has contributed to the inception of Class II and III medical devices, backed by being a named inventor on over 30 patents issued in the United States.

Sandra Hnat - Sandra Hnat, PhD, is a Biomedical Research Engineer and a Principal Investigator with the Advanced Platform Technology (APT) Center at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center (LSCVAMC), and an Adjunct Instructor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Case Western Reserve University School of Engineering. She received her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (2013) and Doctor of Engineering (2018) from Cleveland State University. She then completed her postdoctoral training at the APT Center and at Case Western Research University in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and School of Medicine under a NIH T32 Musculoskeletal Health Postdoctoral Training Grant. She is currently researching under a RR&D Career Development Award at the LSCVAMC.

Her research focuses on improving powered exoskeleton technology for users with lower-limb paralysis. Dr. Hnat’s projects include developing an electrical stimulation subsystem to interface with commercial exoskeletons to enhance their rehabilitative outcomes, developing balance, fall detection, and injury mitigation controllers for a hybrid exoskeleton for users with spinal cord injury, and combining surface electrical stimulation and an exoskeletal knee to improve walking after stroke.

 
Matt Wunzin - Matt Wunzin, BS, has over 15 years of experience within the medical device industry and holds several patents. For the past 9 years, Matt worked for a successful startup in the Cleveland area, called SPR Therapeutics, which developed a neurostimulation product, called the SPRINT PNS System.  This is a home-use wearable device that is used to treat patients with chronic and acute pain.  Matt was one their first engineers and led their initial development effort for the product and since then helped improve and grow with the product and the company.  Most recently, Matt left SPR and started his own engineering consulting business, Five Design & Development, LLC, to allow him to take on new challenges and most importantly, spend some more quality time at home with his two young children.  He received his Bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering and biomechanics from the University of Akron in 2010.

Matt’s journey in medical devices has allowed him to contribute to small startups and large global companies located in the northeast Ohio area.  He has been involved within many facets of medical device product design and development including early stage feasibility, systems engineering, manufacturing & process engineering, and engineering management. Matt has contributed to small  wearable sleep diagnostic devices, in vitro drug screening products, large capital CT scanning equipment, surgical endoscopy devices, orthopedic devices, and more.

Ashley Myers - Ashley Myers, MBA, is a Product Development Program Director at Medtronic within their Cardiac Ablation Solutions group based out of Cleveland, Ohio. Prior to Medtronic, Ashley worked for Philips Healthcare as a CT manufacturing engineer, mechanical design engineer, and project/program manager.  When the Philips Cleveland site closed, Ashley moved over to the aerospace/defense industry working for Safran where she managed sustaining engineering, US military programs, and the industrialization team. She graduated from CWRU in 2010 with a degree in biomedical engineering and received her MBA from Cleveland State University.

While at Case Western Reserve University, Ashley was involved in Phi Sigma Rho, WISER, undergraduate research, and coordinating a healthcare symposium focusing on non-traditional medical careers (Beyond MDs and RNs). Ashley met her husband Dan at Case Western and they have two children: William (age 7) and Abby (age 4).

Keynote Speaker - 4:05 pm to 5:00 pm

Joseph Pancrazio - Joseph J. Pancrazio has a 30+ year career spanning academia and federal government working at the interface of bioscience and engineering. He currently serves as Vice President for Research and Innovation (VPRI) and Professor of Bioengineering at UT Dallas. In his role as VPRI, he oversees research funding, grants and contracts; campus research facilities and information systems; technology commercialization and licensing; venture development “incubator” facilities; and laboratory compliance and safety.

Prior to joining UT Dallas in 2015 as Associate Provost, he served as the founding chair of Bioengineering at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. Before arriving at Mason in 2008, he was in federal government as a Material Scientist at the US Naval Research Laboratory and as the Program Director for Neural Engineering at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Washington, DC. Dr. Pancrazio’s research focuses on the development of novel neural interface technology, which is used to understand and influence the brain and nervous system for the purposes of improving human health. He has a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois followed by a MS and PhD in biomedical engineering in biomedical engineering from the University of Virginia. In 2011, Dr. Pancrazio was elected to the College of Fellows in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, a distinction reserved for the top 2% of professionals in the field. In 2023, he was elected to the Board of Directors for the Oak Ridge Association of Universities.

The APTC Spring i-Con serves as an invaluable opportunity for trainees to network with each other and with the APTC investigators driving forward the frontiers of research and development in translational programs focused on Prosthetics & Orthotics, Health Monitoring & Maintenance, Neural Interfaces and Activity-Based Neurorehabilitation.