News/Updates

November 2014

MicroTas 2014: Platform for in-vitro photo-patterning of whole animal C. elegans assays and behavior control.

We presented our work entitled “Platform for in-vitro photo-patterning of whole animal C. elegans assays and behavior control.” at MicroTas 2014.

 

 

October 2014

Oral defense announcement Nov, 6 2014

Dear ME Faculty and Grad Students,

Christopher “Ryan” Oliver will defend his dissertation entitled “DIRECT-WRITE MANUFACTURING AND MANIPULATION OF MICROPARTICLES, OBJECTS AND ORGANISMS” (see attached abstract), on Thursday, November 6, 2014 at 1:00PM in 1180 R DC.

Dissertation Committee Chairs: John Hart and Nikolaos Chronis

ABSTRACT

DIRECT-WRITE MANUFACTURING AND MANIPULATION OF MICROPARTICLES, OBJECTS AND ORGANISMS

By

Christopher Ryan Oliver

 

Chair: Professor John Hart

 

Recent advances in soft material microfabrication technologies are enabling wide-ranging studies of cellular and organism behavior in vitro; however, these methods are generally time-consuming, challenging to implement by non-experts, are limited to planar features, and cannot be reconfigured within live environments.  As a result, it […]

August 2014

AFRL – Autonomous Research Systems for Materials Development Workshop

I just attended the Air Force Research Laboratories (AFRL) Autonomous Research Systems for Materials Development Workshop hosted by Dr. Benji Maruyama.  

The purpose of the workshop was to discuss the role of automation and autonomous research in materials development.  The experimental space for research development is over whelming and new tools are needed to efficiently use experiments to identify mechanisms or methods to achieve desired material properties.  We worked to layout a roadmap towards this end.

One of the keynote speakers Prof. Powell from Princeton discussed a technique called the knowledge gradient.  This straightforward statistical tool helps to identify the experiment that would […]

A CELLULAR MANUFACTURING PROCESS FOR A FULL-SCALE BIODIESEL MICROREACTOR

Richard E. Billo, C. Ryan Oliver, Rachaneewan Charoenwat, Brian H. Dennis, Paul A. Wilsone, John W. Priest, Heather Beardsley.  A cellular manufacturing process for a full-scale biodiesel microreactor.  J. Manuf Syst. In Press. Available online 8/7/2014.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmsy.2014.07.004]

A cellular manufacturing process was developed for fabrication and assembly of a full-scale biodiesel microreactor capable of producing biodiesel fuel at the rate of 2.47 L/min and at a capacity of over 1.2 million liters of fuel per year. The scale-up of themicroreactor was done through fabrication of over 14,000 individual microchannel laminae, and assembly of these laminae into a hierarchical system of modules and manifolds, thus duplicating many times over […]

May 2014

MBSTP Symposium 2014

I’ll be presenting a poster at the MBSTP (Microfluidics and Biomedical Sciences Training Program) 2014 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

This event is organized annually by and for the training fellows supported by the NIH through the MBSTP training grant.  We are honored to be hosting Professor Luke Lee from UC Berkeley as the keynote speaker to discuss the various microfluidic based on chip tools he and his colleagues have developed.

I will be discussing our work on microparticle synthesis and real time detection and tracking of particles/cells in a microfluidic device.

Come join us if you can.  Details:  MBSTP […]

NIBIB (National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering) Conference 2014

I attended the NIBIB Conference (May 4-6) for training fellows in Washington DC and presented a poster.

We enjoyed a fascinating keynote on the Brain initiative.  If you don’t know about it please follow the link. http://www.nih.gov/science/brain/

I presented our work on microparticle synthesis and real time tracking and detection of particles/cells in a microfluidic device.

Beyond sharing research the theme for training fellows was “Training in Tough Times: Mentor and Trainee Perspectives.”  The agenda was intended to achieve the following:

Preparing trainees for research independence.
Career choices- How can training programs advise trainees on career choices, facilitate open discussions about different options, and prepare trainees […]

February 2014

Shining a light on tiny polymer shapes – MIT News feature

MIT News has graciously recognized our work on maskless lithography for microparticle synthesis.  The article was written by Denis Paiste of the Materials Processing Center and the original can be found here.

If you would like to download a pdf you can find it here Shining a light on tiny polymer shapes – MIT News Office.

 

System for improving carbon nanotube consistency in the lab featured on MIT News

MIT News has featured a piece written by Denis Paiste from the Materials Processing Center discussing our work on improving Carbon Nanotube consistency.  I really appreciate the attention that has been given to how we can translate the fantastic body of work on synthesis of carbon nanotubes into repeatable experiments that can be used towards thermal interconnects and batteries.  Find the original article here.

PDF version  -> Improving carbon nanotube consistency in the lab – MIT News Office

December 2013

Automated CVD system highlighted in Physics Today

I’d like to extend my appreciation and point you to a highlight of Robofurnace in Physics Today released this week.

Check it out here

 

Robofurnace is featured as an editors pick

We’d like to thank the editor at Review of Scientific Instruments for highlighting our work on a Robotic CVD system for nanomaterial growth.