Duke came out #1 on the "smile test"

When asked what had attracted him to Duke for graduate work, Jeff said that he had been very impressed after visiting the campus and talking with Professor Stefan Zauscher. Duke appeared to be a place where he could be productive doing work he enjoyed and it had available all the resources he would need. In addition, during all his graduate school visits, he employed his "smile" test -- smiling at random people and keeping track of what percentage smiled back - and discovered that Duke had the happiest people of any campus he visited. One year later, he says, he definitely feels like he made the right decision in coming to Duke.

Jeff lived in Indonesia from age 11 to 17 and speaks fluent Indonesian. Home-schooled during his high-school years, he pursued his undergraduate education back in his home state of New York. At SUNY Buffalo, Jeff majored in mechanical engineering and minored in biology and gained valuable experience working in a research lab, making model aneurysms and studying biomaterials.

Here at Duke, Jeff is working on a project studying friction and lubrication of articular cartilage, a study which may lead to advances in osteoarthritis treatment. The research area could best be classified as biotribology. Tribology is the subset of mechanics that deals with friction, wear, and lubrication of interacting surfaces in motion. Those processes are in this case being looked at in a biological system.

While engineering, Jeff says, provides a certain logical paradigm that he values, he is more motivated by learning the science behind engineering applications. He also values graduate study as enhancing his ability to think critically and scientifically, and his ability to present information in a useful way. He has enjoyed teaching in the past and may pursue an academic career. It is important to him to be in an environment with the freedom to explore and pursue answers to life's unknowns.

From benchside to bedside.

Having left Kansas wheat fields behind to pursue undergraduate studies at Duke, Richard Bouchard is now pursuing his dream of translating theoretical models into viable solutions to vexing medical problems. Inspired by his mother, a physical therapist in Overland Park, Kansas, Richard is continuing work begun with BME professor Gregg Trahey, his undergraduate advisor and current graduate mentor.

Richard is among the first six Pratt students to be awarded a Pratt-Gardner Society graduate fellowship, a prestigious competitive award that supports promising first-year students. Richard was "honored" to be selected as a fellow, saying that it impressed him and made him realize that "I had a special place at Duke and that they valued my potential."

Richard is firmly established now in Trahey's ultrasound lab, where he and his group are focusing their efforts on Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse Imaging (AFRI), which is designed to permit better characterization of suspicious lesions and tumors (such as breast tumors). By utilizing this technique, physicians will soon be able to non-invasively glean mechanical properties in vivo, which will guide their decisions as to whether further interventions -- such as a biopsy -- are indicated. While the application of this technique is still evolving, Richard's special interest is on streamlining AFRI to be quick enough to gather data in a beating heart.

In addition to majoring in biomedical engineering while an undergrad at Duke, Richard pursued two additional majors: electrical engineering and cultural anthropology. When asked why he had come to Duke as a freshman, Richard said he was impressed with North Carolina when he visited and that the people seemed nice. One of the highlights of his undergraduate experience was being on a team that came in 3rd in the International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition in San Diego in 2003 -- the highest ranking the Duke team had ever achieved. He also enjoyed being vice president of Duke's robotics club.

And what was the appeal of engineering? "Every day was a new challenge," Richard said, providing him with an exciting mix of creativity and analytic thinking. He thus jumped at the chance to continue his work with Professor Trahey as a PhD candidate. Richard's time these days is spent with coursework and as a graduate Teaching Assistant, a juggling act that is forcing him to develop good time-management skills. When he does get into the laboratory, he enjoys working on various simulations, doing in vivo tests on pathology specimens, and participating in clinical trials. He hopes to pinpoint his thesis topic within the coming year. His goal for his graduate work is to make a novel contribution to his lab's research initiative. And what about after graduation -- academia or industry? Richard does not see this as an either/or situation. He hopes to straddle both sectors and is considering pursing an MBA degree someday, perhaps with an international focus, such as working in global public health.

Balancing the violin and clean water

Jeff Bandy got his start at Duke early in life. Born in Duke Hospital to a Duke medical school graduate, Jeff grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, where his father is now an ob/gyn oncology surgeon. He did his undergraduate work at Clemson, majoring in materials science and was actively involved in that school's materials science society. Jeff is also an accomplished violinist both playing in Clemson's orchestra and hosting a college radio show for the four years he was there.

As the son of a Duke alum, the prospect of attending Duke was always in the back of his mind, but attending Duke became a definite option during his senior year at Clemson, when his interest environmental issues intensified and he realized he wanted to focus his efforts in the field of drinking water, a scientifically engaging and socially relevant field. Between the programs at Duke and UNC, Jeff identified several interesting and progressive researchers in this field with whom he might study. He was primarily motivated by humanitarian concerns and so was drawn to the work being done at Duke by Professor Karl Linden, a world expert on the ultraviolet treatment of drinking water.

Jeff has always been interested in the practical application of the engineering sciences and so for his PhD project he will be studying the chemical contaminants in water and how they can be treating using advanced treatment techniques such as UV-based technologies. He will soon be starting a project on reclaimed waste water, which can be treated for many applications short of potable drinking water, such as irrigation and industrial use. He sees this as a burgeoning field and is excited about the amount of work to be done. Asked his opinion about where one can find the best tasting drinking water in world, he said Iceland -- glacier water can't be beat.

Pursuit of a doctoral degree means that Jeff has the opportunity to continue advanced studies in his field of interest, as well as an opportunity to focus on other aspects that contribute to his quality of life, such as playing soccer, cooking, and taking violin lessons. One insight he has gained from graduate school is that now he sees more depth in both laboratory techniques and computational modeling of the environment, and so he has developed in "leaps and bounds" from where he was when he arrived, dramatically broadening his perspective.

Jeff hasn't decided yet what route he will follow when he finishes his PhD. He is exploring many ideas, such as advising lawmakers on environmental issues. He is also interested in working on water project for people in need, such as immigrants in North Carolina. As he said, "you don't need to travel thousands of miles to help people." He sees an industrial future for himself rather than an academic life. Professors are vitally important, but he is just too anxious to get out into the world and make a difference.

Watch your step! Landmines and the humanitarian application of electrical engineering

Not unlike many other students, in college Peter Torrione explored majors very distant from the interests of his engineer father. The New Jersey native initially pursued music and history but then turned to electrical engineering. "I wasn't very good at the trombone", he said, "but I was good at math." Thus, his father's career as an ITT engineer started to inspire him. After graduating from Tufts University, Peter worked for a year at the MathWorks in Natick, Massachusetts, a company that manufactures a software program extensively used in engineering -- MATLAB.

While Peter had wanted to "give industry a chance," he always knew he really wanted to continue his studies. He selected Duke for his PhD program because of his interest in the work being done at Duke, which he was already familiar with. Peter had previously studied at Duke with funding from Professor Gary Ybarra under a National Science Foundation teaching grant in which he was teaching science to rural elementary school students. While teaching under the NSF grant, he also worked as a research assistant in the laboratory of Dr. Leslie Collins, who was involved in a project focusing on land-mine removal using wide-band electromagnetic induction (EMI) sensors. This work eventually led to Peter's master's thesis with Dr. Collins. Following his master's Peter worked for Dr. Collins' group on several different landmine detection programs as an associate in research. After two years of this work, he recognized that he enjoyed research and thus applied to the PhD program.

In addition to the general honor of being named a fellow in the Pratt-Gardner Society, Peter greatly appreciated the freedom this support gave him to attend Duke without the immediate pressure of finding and maintaining grants to fund his research. He has now found outside funding for his work and is well into his work on the application of image processing and physics-based signal processing techniques for land-mine detection in ground-penetrating radar. While he himself has not yet been out into a live mine field, he and his group collect data over government maintained testing sites over de-fused (but explosive-laden) landmines. The work by Dr. Collins' team has already resulted in several degrees of magnitude reduction in false-alarm rates for anti-tank landmine detection using ground-penetrating radar data. The algorithms they have developed (i.e., the software and mathematical transformations that decide whether or not a land mine is present) form a basis for algorithms current being used in the field in Angola, where NIITEK (the radar manufacturer) and the US Government are performing humanitarian land-mine clearance operations. Other researchers in Collins' group are working on a Department of Defense-sponsored project on unexploded ordinance clearance.

From his graduate studies at Duke, Peter expects that he will have acquired the background and well-roundedness he needs to manage projects whether in industry or in a university setting. These are skills he will need just in case he doesn't fulfill his long-term dream of becoming a rock star. While his musical skills may be getting rusty, and he is not currently in a band, he is well on his way to being successful in the humanitarian application of electrical engineering, to ordinance clearance and to land-mine removal.

Harnessing the power of light to deliver drugs

Born in Jerusalem, Or Amit grew up in the small southern Israeli town of Lehavim with his younger brother and high-school teacher parents. Or migrated to the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque for his undergraduate work, where he studied biochemistry and mathematics. It was this combination of studies that influenced him to turn in the direction of biomedical engineering, a field that for Or is a wonderful amalgamation of all aspects of science.

At Duke, Or has been able to pursue his dream of studying with Professor Ashutosh Chilkoti in part because of the financial assistance provided by the Pratt-Gardner Society fellowship. Receipt of this special fellowship was not just an honor, for Or it was also a very welcome assurance that he would be able to afford the move from Albuquerque to Durham. Now, with that critical first year of support behind him, Or is continuing his work in developing novel systems for drug delivery.

Or had been generally impressed with Duke's reputation but was primarily attracted by the work being done in Professor Chilkoti's lab, which, in addition to developing new technologies for drug delivery, is also doing work in nanotechnology, tissue engineering, biosensors, and fusion proteins. Or is delighted by the stimulation he finds in this diversified lab. He has been working on a project focused on developing drug delivery methods using photo-responsive proteins. The drug would be encased in the modified protein structure, which would fall apart when irradiated with light, thus releasing the encased drug.

Through his graduate studies at Duke, Or hopes to gain extensive knowledge and experience in the field of biomedical engineering. He plans to combine his biomedical educational foundation with postgraduate work in business; he is currently exploring a one-year MBA program at Cornell University that is specially designed for scientists and engineers. Or sees his career trajectory going in the direction of industry rather than academia. He would like to work for a leading biotechnology group or perhaps in consulting.

Engineering was "in the air" in Kokomo

As a youngster in Kokomo, Indiana, it wasn't hard for Nathan Sadler to imagine himself as an engineer. All he had to do was look around his neighborhood and see an engineer in every other house in this auto-industry town. While Nathan has chosen not to pursue a career as an automotive engineer, those early years strongly reinforced his natural talents in math and science.

From Kokomo, Nathan's family moved to Wheaton, Illinois, where they still live and where he went to high school. He studied electrical and computer engineering as an undergraduate at the University of Rochester, and is pursuing the same field here at Duke. He was attracted to Duke because of the excellent "fit" with his interests and the research endeavors of Professor Daniel Sorin, his first-year advisor.

Receipt of the prized Pratt-Gardner Society fellowship was an unexpected honor that Nathan is especially proud of. He was impressed that he was one of only six students chosen for the first group of Pratt-Gardner fellows and during his first year enjoyed getting to know the other fellows and learn about their work and aspirations. He hopes that interactions among the fellows will continue -- both within his own group and with the new group of fellows.

Still early in his graduate studies, Nathan is enthusiastic about the work he is doing in Professor Sorin's lab, which is set up to study "computer architecture" and the hardware design of microprocessors. Their goal, he says, "is to develop faster, cheaper, more reliable, more efficient computer processors," which, of course, will enable the addition of more features to the machines.

In pursuing a doctorate in engineering, Nathan hopes not only to produce new and interesting research but is also determined to position himself as an independent researcher. Whether he eventually ends up working in an industrial setting or in a university, Nathan values the freedom the PhD provides in allowing him to have control over his own projects and the ability to steer his research in directions of his own choosing. He is also looking forward -- in whichever setting he eventually finds himself -- to being a mentor to students and junior colleagues.