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.

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.

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 is currently the CPO for Neuralthread.

Mark Nyaeme

Position title: Alumni

Tsani Rogers

Position title: 2021 Graduate

Tsani 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

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 now a PhD student 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: PhD Student

Originally hailing from Singapore, Nishant is a WITNe graduate student. He completed his undergraduate degree at Rice University. Nishant works 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

As an undergrad Amanda has contributed to projects across the WITNe lab and has been able to see the ways in which engineering and neuroscience are inextricably intertwined in the medical field.

Kristy Wendt

Position title: PhD candidate

Matthew Wroblewski

Position title: Undergraduate Researcher

Matthew is a Biomedical Engineering undergraduate student who joined the lab in early 2022. He enjoys working on data interpretation and analysis of MRI imaging and is looking forward to contributing work on Vagus Nerve Stimulation projects ongoing in the lab.

NITRO Alumni