WITNe Alumni

The WITNe lab would like to recognize and appreciate all of the hard work, dedication and ingenuity that our alumni have contributed to bring us to where we are now. Our alumni are unparalleled, they go on to achieve incredible and unmatched successes in this industry and beyond. We are grateful to all our present and future alumni and the WITNe community we’ve built together.

One of the most beautiful things about WITNe is how we push our members to thrive and achieve their dreams – whether that’s with us or somewhere else. We challenge each and every member to continue to grow and find new avenues for their learning and research and regardless of where they land they will always be a part of WITNe.

Members

Rayan Alkashgari

Rayan worked on his Biomedical Engineering PhD in the Williams lab. His favorite project for the lab was setting up the TDT system for online data acquisition/storage and external stimulation. It was a new experience that involved learning a new coding method and building an online closed-loop model.

Spencer Averbeck

Position title: Undergraduate Researcher 2019-2021

Spencer is now a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.

Spencer graduated from UW-Madison in 2021 in Biomedical Engineering with a focus in Bioinstrumentation. Within WITNe Spencer helped with multiple projects, through physical testing of devices and data analysis. One of his biggest accomplishments in the lab was in perfecting the fabrication of small disc electrodes.

Andrea Brzeczkowski

Position title: Research Coordinator

Andrea has worked in the WITNe lab for 2 years. She finised her BS in Neurobiology and Biochemistry in 2018 and is currently completing her MS in Biomedical Engineering/Neuroengineering. Andrea’s projects study effects of electrical stimulation and how that relates to behavior and neural activity. She enjoys the outdoors, playing sports and joining in on lab outings and taking care of her tortoise Charlie.

Jenna Eizadi

Position title: WITNe Alumni

Jenna’s most rewarding project during her time with WITNe was optimizing the labs cortical neuron cell cultures. This project involved a number of scientific experiments and it’s completion enabled the advancement of research with wireless neural sensors.

Annabel Frake

Position title: Student Researcher, Aug 2022 - May 2023

Annabel graduated from UW-Madison with a BS in Biomedical Engineering, with a certificate in German, and International Engineering. She is now an Intern at Test Systems Engineering with Inspire Medical Systems. She joined the lab in September 2022 and helped collect data during deep brain stimulation (DBS) experiments. She is passionate about neuroscience, translational research, and the acquisition of knowledge.

Mitchell Glowdowski

Position title: WITNe Alumni

Mitchell currently works for Boston Scientific as a Process Development Engineer in their Interventional Cardiology division. He is always looking for ways to continue utilization of the skills I picked up during my time in the Hai Lab! He appreciated the experience and knowledge everyone had, and was willing, to offer.

Maïsha Kasole

Position title: Undergraduate Researcher 2019-2021

Maïsha is now a post-baccalaureate at the National Institutes of Health and has been accepted to her first MD/PhD program!

Maïsha Kasole was an undergraduate student in biomedical engineering at UW – Madison. Her special interests during her time at the UW were bioinstrumentation and computer science. Outside of academia, Maïsha is passionate about STEM outreach in underrepresented communities and medical volunteering.

James Koeper

Position title: Student Researcher, July 2022 - Summer 2023

James graduated with a BS in Biomedical/Medical Engineering in the spring of 2023. He joined the lab in July 2022 and worked with motion tracking projects and analyzing neural recordings during spinal cord stimulation experiments. Outside the lab he enjoys waterskiing, tennis, and playing piano.

Matthew LaLuzerne

Position title: Graduate Researcher, spring 2020 - summer 2023

Undergraduate Researcher 2020-2022, Master’s student 2022 – 2023.

Matthew graduated from UW-Madison with a BS in mechanical engineering in 2022. He has worked on many animal motion tracking projects and coding projects. He enjoys projects that integrate software with lab equipment.

Emily Masterson

Credentials: Hai Lab Alumni

Position title: Undergraduate Researcher

Emily is focused on the in-vivo validation of novel wireless brain sensors for functional magnetic resonance imaging. She is interested in aiding the development of neuroscience practices for real-world biomedical applications.

Jonah Mudge

Position title: Undergraduate Researcher 2019-2021

Jonah is a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering at Case Western.

Jonah graduated from UW-Madison Spring 2021 in Biomedical Engineering and Neurobiology and a minor in Computer Science. During his time with WITNe he did everything from writing papers to characterization of nerves with TENS units.

Jared Ness

Position title: Research Specialist - Alumni

Joseph Novello

Position title: Research Intern, 2014-2018

Joey graduated from UW-Madison with an MS in Biomedical Engineering in 2014. After graduated he worked for the Williams lab, Neuralink and now works for SpikeGadgets as a Mechanical Engineer and Neuralthread as the CPO.

Mark Nyaeme

Position title: Alumni

Jack Phillips

Position title: Hai Lab Alumni

Jack is a PhD student in biomedical engineering. Jack is using electrophysiological and computational methods to develop untethered neural sensors. Jack looks forward to every step of developing new types of brain machine interfaces, from fabrication to neurobiological validation and eventual clinical use.

Connor Phipps

Position title: Undergraduate Researcher, Oct 2020 - summer 2023

Connor graduated with a BS in Biomedical Engineering from UW-Madison in May 2023. While at WITNe he helped with a motion artifact project various other projects. When he’s not in the lab you can find him playing rugby, guitar, or 3D printing at home.

Tsani Rogers

Position title: 2021 Graduate

Tsani is currently a graduate student at Boston University. While in the Hai lab she worked on nitrogen vacancy based magnetometry in order to detect neural magnetic fields at high spatial resolutions. She is interested in aiding technological development in the  areas of software and neuroengineering.

Lauren Rohr

Position title: Undergraduate Researcher 2019-2021

Erika Ross Ellison

Position title: Ludwig - Post-Doctoral Fellow 2016-2017

Erika is now the director of R&D applied Research at Abbott Neuromodulation.

Zachary Sanger

Position title: Ludwig Lab - Undergraduate Researcher - 2016-2018

Zachary is a PhD candidate in Biomedical Engineering at University of Minnesota.

Aaron Skubal

Credentials: 2022 Graduate - Biomedical Engineering

Position title: Research Intern

Aaron has been an integral part of WITNe during his undergraduate career and is looking forward to starting his PhD career in the fall.

He participates in almost every aspect of the lab, including most live experiments, analyzing data from said experiments, creating/setting-up and developing equipment and devices. Aaron enjoys working on the Vagus Nerve Stimulation experiments because he gets to see how prefab, practice and hard work comes together – watching the process from concept to application.

Nishant Verma

Position title: WITNe PhD Student, Aug 2019 - Dec 2022

Originally hailing from Singapore, Nishant was a WITNe graduate student. He now is a Senior Research Engineer with Presidio Medical, Inc. He completed his undergraduate degree at Rice University. While with WITNe Nishant worked on large animal studies for minimally invasive neuromodulation therapies. He enjoys grappling with the physics, engineering, and electrochemistry of neuromodulation modalities. Nishant enjoys reading, feeling the wind rushing through his hair, and thinking about world peace.

Amanda Weis

Position title: Undergraduate, 2019-2022

As an undergrad Amanda contributed to projects across the WITNe lab. Amanda graduated from UW Madison with a BS in Neurobiology in 2022. She now works as a Medical Scribe at Northwest Community Healthcare.

Kristy Wendt

Position title: PhD candidate

Matthew Wroblewski

Position title: Undergraduate Researcher, Jan 2022 - Jan 2023

Matthew graduated from UW-Madison with a BS in Biomedical Engineering in May of 2023. He is now a Research Intern with UW Badger Lab.  He enjoys working on data interpretation and analysis of MRI imaging and contributed to work on Vagus Nerve Stimulation projects.

Lily Xistris

Position title: Undergraduate Researcher, Sep 2023 - Summer 2023

Lily graduated from UW Madison with a BS in Biomedical Engineering in May of 2023. She joined the lab in the fall of 2021, and worked on mice projects to understand the impact of trigeminal nerve stimulation on the glymphatic system.

NITRO Alumni