Dr. Vinoy Thomas is an assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. training spans from Chemistry/Polymers to Materials Science and Nanotechnology with specific training and expertise in Polymers and Biomaterials. He also holds secondary appointments at the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Environmental Science & Health. He is also a Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Nanoscale Materials and Biointegration. After his PhD in Biomaterials & Technology he completed postdoctoral training at Friedrich-Schiller University, Germany, and at the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST). His research focuses on biomaterials processing-property relationships, nanomaterials for tissue engineering, and nanodiamonds for joint-implants.

Arie Nakhmani joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as an assistant professor in 2013. Prior to that, he completed his postdoctoral training at Georgia Tech and Boston University. He is an Associate Scientist in the Comprehensive Cancer Center, and director of ANRY lab at the UAB. He is the author of over 90 peer-reviewed research articles and book chapters on robust control, machine learning, and signal and image analysis.

Rachel June Smith joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Neuroengineering Program as an assistant professor in August 2022. She completed her Ph.D. with Dr. Beth Lopour at UC Irvine in 2019. Her doctoral work focused on the development of computational metrics in scalp EEG data that reflected disease burden and predicted response to treatment in patients with infantile spasms (IS), a potentially devastating epileptic encephalopathy. Rachel completed her postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University with Dr. Sridevi Sarma, where she used dynamical systems and control theory techniques to localize the onset of seizures in the epileptic brain from intracranial EEG recordings during single-pulse electrical stimulation. As an assistant professor at UAB, Rachel will continue to collaborate with expert neurologists and use her computational skills to develop novel measures of therapeutic response in patients with neurodegenerative disorders.