From her formative years in Cupertino, Calif., Susan Schramfield had diverse interests in engineering, writing, and design. During her undergraduate studies, she initially pursued a degree in costume design. However, after a hiatus, she returned to Temple University at 29 and realized that “my passion and aptitude for math and science far surpassed my interest or skill in the arts.”
When it was time to begin her graduate studies, Schramfield was drawn to Case Western Reserve University and the Human Fusions Institute because of her interest in working with neural interfaces focused on touch and the peripheral nervous system. As a member of HFI Director Dustin Tyler’s research group, she has found that her background in the arts has led to her success in designing and fabricating technological systems. Recently, she completed her M.S. project, “Mixed Reality Experimental Environment.”
Primarily interested in neural interfaces, haptic displays, and wearable technology, Schramfield decided on the topic for her project when she struggled to find precise methods for collecting quantitative data while studying haptics and neuro-engineering. She developed a system allowing HFI researchers to gather data to push forward frontiers in haptics, neural interfacing, and virtual presence. The platform she built allows a researcher to easily collect motion data from subjects in mixed reality and from real and virtual objects the subject might interact with. The platform can also track the focus of the user’s gaze, and Schramfield plans to continue adding functions to collect more kinds of data. “I wanted to create something with enduring value to current and future students at HFI and enable them to focus more on their research questions and less on developing tools to ask them,” she said.
Though Schramfield has completed her M.S. project, she will remain at HFI as part of the engineering team. “I believe this group has incredible potential to do good in the world.” She thanked HFI’s most recent Ph.D. graduate, Nabeel Chowdhury, for his mentorship throughout her project. “He went above and beyond to guide me through graduate school. Without his advice, guidance, and friendship, I do not think I would have had the success I have had in this program.”
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When Mackenzie Elmer was a high school student attending an admitted students weekend at Case Western Reserve University, she attended a lecture by Human Fusions Institute director Dustin Tyler and immediately became interested in his research. Having enjoyed math and science classes in high school, Tyler’s lecture “opened the door” to Elmer’s interest in engineering and seeing how technology can transform people’s lives.
Having graduated from CWRU with an electrical engineering major and a biomedical engineering minor in 2023, Elmer is the new lab manager at the Human Fusions Institute. Her primary responsibilities will include overseeing quality management systems for the lab, ensuring safety procedures, ensuring all the equipment is up to date and well maintained and that team members know how to use it properly, keeping lab records, and serving as a resource for facilitating research.
Elmer brings a wealth of experience to HFI from her time at Rockwell Automation, where she honed her skills as a systems design engineer. Her focus on upgrading metal refinery systems showcased her technical abilities. It allowed her to develop strong communication and interpersonal skills, which she is eager to apply in her new role as the lab manager at HFI.
Though Elmer is new to HFI, she is not a stranger to many researchers’ work. As an undergraduate, she participated in a co-op at the Cleveland VA Hospital’s Advanced Platform Technology Center, supporting some of Associate Professor Michael Fu’s virtual reality projects. She particularly enjoyed troubleshooting prosthetic devices and supporting Fu’s virtual reality integration with games.
With her eyes set on the future, Elmer is eager to witness the research in action and its direct impact on people’s lives. She is excited about working with a team of experienced individuals and is keen to learn from their expertise.
2024 has been a year of significant accomplishments for Noah Medrano. The second-year Computer Science/ Humanities and Technology double major was named a Mandel Undergraduate Fellow before his first year of college was over, and he was recently named a Hispanic Scholarship Fund scholar. Medrano is one of 10,000 university students of Hispanic descent nationwide who received a scholarship.
During the 2023-2024 academic year, Medrano participated in Esperanza Inc.’s Líderes Avanzando first-year student program. The program coordinators encouraged him to apply for a scholarship. He used his application to showcase his strengths, educational values, and commitment to his studies and goals.
Medrano received $3500 in funding as a Hispanic Fund Scholarship scholar, which he plans to put toward his tuition. Though academically successful, some of his most significant accomplishments throughout his undergraduate career have come outside the classroom. As an active member of the Human Fusions Institute’s SaPHaRI (Social and Physical Human-Robot Interaction) Lab, he leads the Affect-Sensing Wearables project. This project will collect physiological signals and estimate the user’s emotional state, then encourage third parties to provide social touch to improve the wearer’s mood. He plans to conduct an experiment before the end of the academic year.
Outside of the academic arena, Medrano hosted the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Fair earlier this year. He worked with Case Western Reserve University’s Residence Hall Association to showcase resources to minority students on campus. Over 300 students attended the fair to meet representatives from eight university offices and more than fifteen student organizations, a testament to Medrano’s impactful leadership abilities.
“It has been an absolute pleasure working with Noah Medrano, and I am thrilled to see him recognized as a Hispanic Scholarship Fund Scholar,” said Assistant Professor Alexis E. Block, director of the SaPHaRI Lab. “Noah’s hard work, diligence, and creativity have made a phenomenal addition to the SaPHaRI Lab. Beyond his talent, Noah is a wonderful person whose kindness and passion inspire everyone around him. This recognition is a well-deserved testament to his incredible potential, and I can’t wait to see all he accomplishes in the future.”
In his youth, Jack Hayden was involved with his school’s Science Olympiad, where he learned about interactions between different types of science and “how much fun” science can be. Now a student in the exercise science M.S. program at Cleveland State University, he has become the main tester for the Human Fusions Institute’s bi-manual robot arm setup and virtual reality training process.
The robot arm setup, a culmination of HFI’s research components, is a significant part of the institute’s Office of Naval Research project. The researchers envision a future where the system can be operated remotely, allowing the operator to experience the robot arms as their own and even feel the grasp through the stimulators.
Hayden first learned about the opportunity while taking a class with Doug Wajda, one of three Cleveland State faculty members affiliated with HFI. “When the human factors team decided that we were going to produce a training module, he was the first person to come to mind as our user to take through the whole process,” said Wajda. Human Factors is an interdisciplinary team focusing on human performance and experience between humans and machines.
At the beginning of the process, Hayden familiarized himself with virtual reality and electrical sensation interfacing. Once acquainted with the controls, he started the stimulation acclimation task, which involved sorting a table of avocados into groups based on their harness. His next task was the virtual twin activity, where he moved objects between two virtual robot arms with different levels of vision, from transparent to opaque. His next task was the reach module, which helped him become more comfortable with the robotic arm movement and range. Finally, he practiced gripping objects with the robotic arms, squeezing them with a set intensity, and reaching around obstacles to grab each object.
Using what he learned from his training to teleoperate the physical robot arms, Hayden used his arms to grab objects of different sizes and compliance and was able to discriminate between each through stimulation. Touch helped him when various levels of visual degradation were introduced in the system, enabling him to complete the search and identify tasks.
Hayden is proud of how much progress he has seen as an individual and in the system. “The system has been improved, and the training program has become much more fluid and effective,” he said. “At the beginning, I was nervous and slow with my movements, but now I am very confident and trust that I know how the robot will operate and move as I complete tasks.”
After each demonstration or test, the team collects feedback and makes the necessary adjustments. Hayden looks forward to gaining information to improve the system as he continues his work. He emphasized how much he has enjoyed working on a project to help develop technology that potentially limits injury risk. “I have also enjoyed getting to know so many amazing people working in collaboration on the project,” he said.
“Jack was instrumental to the success of our training modules,” said Wajda. “Not only did he show up every day ready to become more proficient in using the system, but he also offered valuable discussion and insight regarding the refinement of the training programs.”
After Hayden graduates from Cleveland State in December, he hopes to become a strength and conditioning coach for a professional sports team. He hopes to help strengthen professional athletes and work with biomechanists to reduce the risk of injury.
When Nabeel Chowdhury was an undergraduate student at Washington University in St. Louis, he helped make prostheses for children and to design affordable sockets for the devices. His interest in prosthetics took off when he watched a three-year-old born without fingers put on a device he made and start counting on her hand. The Rolla, Mo. native recently successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis, “Pre-Perceptual Sensorimotor Utility of Evoked Afferent Signals by Peripheral Nerve Stimulation.”
Chowdhury’s thesis has been in the works since he came to Case Western Reserve University in 2017 to study with Human Fusions Institute Director Dustin Tyler. As he met study participants and read papers, he noticed cortical stim processing was almost 2 to 4 times slower than natural touch. “There was a running hypothesis in the field that there are other structures apart from the cortex that touch from the hand would go to before the cortex that would greatly improve how stimulated touch could be processed,” he said. “Our lab is uniquely positioned to stimulate the limbs that could interact with these other structures in the touch pathway.” When his second semester began, he ran an experiment proving his hypothesis that stimulation in Tyler’s lab was processed like a natural touch.
Chowdhury’s research delved into the touch process naturally and at the cortex, as well as the physiology of the touch pathway. He discovered that most engineering textbooks skip from the finger to the cortex rather than showing detailed diagrams of the network that touch stimuli cover. He then found studies theorizing that connections would be robust to peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS), a technique that involves electrical stimulation to activate the nerves. After conducting tests, he adapted similar proprioception and visual feedback studies for PNS.
When Chowdhury was looking for a university for Ph.D. studies, he was drawn to CWRU’s focus on the long-term benefits their technology had on users. “Most programs were excited to talk about how their implants worked for a month before taking them out of participants, but CWRU focused on how our electrodes and studies had been helping people for almost a decade and were being used at home,” he recalled. “CWRU focused on helping people and less on just making ‘cool stuff.’”
Throughout his time at CWRU, Chowdhury has prioritized mentoring new students in the lab and creating a sense of community. He is also proud of the relationships he has built with study participants. “It has always been important to me to foster a relationship with the participants that shows them they are my first priority,” he said.
The Human Fusions Institute was well-represented at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago. Luke Osborn, the newest full-time faculty member, presented at the “Somatosensory Restoration Through Neuroprosthetics” session, while Rachel Jakes and Margaux Randolph, Ph.D. students, gave poster presentations.
Margaux Randolph and Rachel Jakes at SfN
Osborn’s presentation, “Enabling rapid thermal perceptions using thin-film thermoelectric cooling technology,” focused on delivering temperature sensations to someone using a prosthetic arm or grabbing virtual objects while wearing an augmented reality headset. To prepare for his presentation, he collected data from experiments with human participants in his research, showing results from experiments where someone was using a prosthetic arm to feel and identify which objects were cold. He found that how well participants performed on the task depended on how quickly the temperature feedback was delivered to their missing hand. Faster thermal feedback gave participants stronger sensations, which also improved task performance.
Osborn also played a key role in a collaborative research effort with Breanne Christie, a respected researcher from Johns Hopkins University. Christie’s presentation, “Electrocorticographic responses in somatosensory cortex to fingertip haptic vibrations in an individual living with ALS,” explored how brain signals change depending on the delivered haptic feedback. Osborn and Christie worked with a brain implant study participant to record brain activity while haptic feedback was delivered to the participant’s hand. When haptic feedback was delivered at an unexpected time or location, there was a shift in the timing and size of the brain signals. At the end of both presentations, conference attendees were interested and wanted to learn more about Osborn’s research.
Jakes’s poster presentation, “The Strength-Duration Curve Can Efficiently Define a Multi-Dimensional Dynamic Intensity Range for Peripheral Nerve Stimulation Somatosensation,” was geared toward restoring and improving the sense of touch in people with upper limb loss. Jakes’s poster applied data collected with participants with implanted cuff electrodes and psychometrics to assess how intensity perception varies across the stimulation parameter space. Jakes is working with fellow Case Western Reserve University Ph.D. students Ben Alexander and Vlad Marcu to write a paper on this research, which they expect to be ready for preprint by the end of the calendar year.
Randolph studied emerging applications of peripheral nerve stimulation for her poster, “Acute Placement and Muscle Recruitment of a Novel Interfascicular Electrode for Peripheral Nerve Stimulation.” She appreciated the opportunity to speak to other researchers about her work on the preclinical data she collected on an interfascicular electrode designed to have high selectivity and less nerve damage.
Margaux Randolph poses by her poster
The conference was also a valuable experience for those who did not give presentations. Ph.D. student Leah Roldan was fascinated by presentations about using a second robotic thumb and alternative ways to analyze location drawings, which gave her new ideas for her own analysis. She also enjoyed attending a seminar about publishing null results, which are often undervalued but still contribute significantly to the field, and meeting with recent CWRU alums.
Researchers from around the world came to Chicago for the conference. “I got to talk with many great people at SFN,” said Osborn. “Interesting research projects are going on worldwide, including a lot exploring how we can deliver useful sensory information back to individuals after an injury.” He was also pleased that many people he met were interested in HFI’s research.
From a young age, Sophia Corey enjoyed assembling her toys and unraveling their inner workings. “I’ve always been curious about how the world around me functions,” she shared. Now a first-year student at Case Western Reserve University, she has wasted no time in seizing the research opportunities at the Human Fusions Institute.
After watching the 60 Minutes episode featuring HFI Director Dustin Tyler, Sophia Corey was immediately captivated by the idea of adding sensory input to prosthetics. Her enthusiasm led her to contact Tyler shortly after arriving on the CWRU campus. “After learning about the broader scope of research happening at HFI, I knew I wanted to be a part of it,” she said. “I’m excited to learn as much as possible and contribute to this transformative work.”
Corey is currently working with Ph.D. student Margaux Randolph, who is teaching her about computer-aided and preclinical electrode design. Randolph expressed excitement about getting Corey more involved in the lab’s research.
Leaning towards majoring in biomedical or electrical engineering, Corey is particularly interested in engineering that interacts directly with the body and involves the brain and nervous system. She is a CWRU collaborative coding club member and plans to join other engineering societies. After she finishes her undergraduate studies, she plans to start either M.D/Ph.D. or Ph.D studies.
As a high school senior in Spain, Marta Ruiz Gonzalez’s interest in applied physics was sparked by a course that challenged her perspective on the subject. Initially considering a medical career, she discovered that biomedical engineering perfectly blended her original passion and her newfound interest in physics.
Driven by her passion for biomedical engineering, Ruiz Gonzalez chose to continue her academic journey at Case Western Reserve University. Now a junior, she is embarking on a semester at the Human Fusions Institute, where she will study peripheral nerves with Ph.D. student Margaux Randolph. Their collaborative work aims to enhance the testing and performance of an electrode implanting system for the nerves.
A CWRU Neuroscience Society member, Ruiz Gonzalez heard about HFI from one of her fellow club members. After meeting Randolph and hearing about their interest in neural engineering, she knew she wanted to get involved. “Neurosurgery is a very broad area in constant evolution, and biomedical engineering could potentially solve many problems and improve many procedures,” she said.
Looking ahead, Ruiz Gonzalez is eager to make her mark in the device design industry. Her ultimate goal is to collaborate with neurosurgeons, understand their specific needs, and enhance surgical procedures.
Beyond her academic pursuits, Ruiz Gonzalez is an active member of the CWRU running club. She values the opportunity to meet new people and stay fit, finding balance in her life outside the STEM arena.
When Emily Imka was a high school student at Hathaway Brown School, she went to NASA Glenn Research Center as an intern through her school’s Fellowship in Science Research & Engineering Program. “It was a way for me to explore my interest in research in a structured way with mentors,” she said. “I was an artist, but I hadn’t realized yet that there were legitimate careers in art with a connection to the sciences.”
Imka’s interest in the interaction between arts and sciences led her to pursue a career as a biomedical artist. She earned her B.F.A. in biomedical art at Cleveland Institute of Art and is now a graphic designer at the Human Fusions Institute.
At HFI, Imka will be instrumental in shaping the institute’s visual identity and creating media that effectively communicates its values and technology. This includes producing photos, figures, and illustrations for grants, designing printed materials for the physical space on campus, and creating graphics for presentations, brochures, and posters.
Before coming to HFI, Imka worked as a medical illustrator specializing in neuromodulation at Cleveland Functional Electrical Stimulation Center. She enjoyed contributing her design skills in a research environment and is eager to do the same at HFI.
“I’m excited to learn about the research directly from the people doing it and about the opportunity to showcase their work creatively,” said Imka. “I am very drawn to the team HFI has been building. I like their dedication to their projects and how they work together.”
Four high school students, including Cait Ahn of Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut and three local students: Olivia Bruening of Cleveland Heights High School, Austin Fritzgerald of Hawken School, and Aashvi Jagetia of Hathaway Brown School, spent the summer at the Human Fusions Institute, contributing to the institute’s mission of advancing research and innovation.
Spending the summer in Cleveland for the first time, Ahn, a San Francisco Bay Area native, created parts using Onshape, 3D-printed them in think[box] and made iterations. She designed a wrist mount to attach different hand and arm models and a sensor mount to increase user sensation. Ahn also printed things for others’ projects and is proud of her mastery of Onshape, the development of usable products, and the significant growth and independence she achieved in the design process.
As Ahn prepares to start her senior year of high school, she is eager to apply her new skills to her final season on her robotics team, demonstrating the real-world impact of her summer experience. This experience has not only enhanced her technical skills but also instilled in her a sense of innovation and a desire to apply her knowledge to real-world problems.
Jagetia’s enthusiasm for her work was evident as she described her experience. She primarily worked with McGann and Jakes, mapping joint angles relevant to hand movements used in tasks to the joints of robotic grippers. Using the lab’s Oculus headset, she used hand tracking to find joint angles through testing before analyzing the data using Python. “I thought working with the Oculus headset was so cool because I’ve never really used anything like it,” she said. “It was exciting to have the chance to use it and play around with it a bit.” On a typical day, she used the headset to test, made edits to the code, and ran the Unity program to check for errors and troubleshoot to correct any errors. She was fascinated by the programming language and all the software she learned to use, including C#, Python, and ROS2.
“I really enjoyed working in this field, and I think it’s definitely something I could see myself pursuing in the future,” said Jagetia, who enjoyed the freedom that came with her internship. She looks forward to continuing to research at HFI during the school year throughout her junior and senior years and using her new skills to build robots for her school’s robotics team.
Fitzgerald primarily worked with CWRU Ph.D. student Roberto Peralta. He performed a risk analysis on the Saturn II stimulator, testing each waveform at different pulse widths and amplitudes and tracking their accuracy. After reviewing standards and noting out-of-standard points, he plotted microseconds of each pulse width value. Amid his analysis, he identified a high-density connect and put it in a printed circuit board design so that all 26 channels of the Saturn II could be used at their full potential.
When Fritzgerald began his internship at the beginning of the summer, his coding knowledge was limited. He quickly learned to use MATLAB to plot, identify patterns, and memorize commands. “It was extremely rewarding to see my code turn into a plot right before my eyes.” His rapid growth and learning over the summer testify to his dedication and hard work.
Fritzgerald looks forward to starting his senior year by presenting his work over the summer at his school’s science fair. “The work at HFI is fascinating,” said Fritzgerald, who enjoyed learning about other projects in the lab, especially virtual reality. “I am very proud to be involved in such amazing work as a high school student. My academic journey is just beginning, and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to have an experience like this.”
Mentored by Ph.D. student Margaux Randolph, Bruening came to HFI as part of CWRU’s Research Immersion in Brain, Spinal Cord, & Peripheral Nerves program for high school students. Her main project was working in a dry lab to compare two doctors’ observations on fascicular anatomy in peripheral nerves. One believed that the fascicles merged and diverged randomly and not in groups, while the other thought they merged in groups. Bruening believed one doctor was more accurate in the sporadic convergence, whereas the other only looked distally at the body.
Having spent her days at HFI segmenting the nerve micro CTs and analyzing different slides, Bruening was “intrigued in seeing how the fascicles merged and diverged within the nerve.” She was also proud of herself for learning how to use new software.
When the new school year starts, Bruening looks forward to thanking her science teacher, who encouraged her to pursue the internship, and encouraging other students to get involved in Summer 2025. “I think the biomedical engineering field is awesome,” she said. “If it weren’t for this program, I never would’ve known how interested in biomedical engineering I would be.”
As an undergraduate student at Calcutta Institute of Engineering and Management, Rohit Bose was deeply inspired by Hugh Herr’s TED Talk on the ability of prosthetic leg recipients to walk and dance again. His fascination with the field was not just a passing interest, but a profound passion that would shape his future.
Now, Bose is the newest postdoc at the Human Fusions Institute. Fresh from his Ph.D. studies at the University of Pittsburgh, he is ready to dive into his main focus at HFI: developing innovative invasive and noninvasive technologies to deliver meaningful sensory feedback. His enthusiasm is palpable as he looks forward to rehabilitating differently-abled populations and augmenting the performance of healthy individuals.
Bose was drawn to the collaborative nature of HFI, recognizing the value of different perspectives. “There are so many passionate and talented individuals working towards one vision of humanizing technology to improve quality of life,” he said. “Today, where most disciplines work separately towards the same goal, HFI aims to merge them and provide an interdisciplinary framework. I am looking forward to learning new perspectives from different disciplines.”
While Bose is new to Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland, his experience in the prosthetics field is far-reaching. As a Ph.D. student in Pittsburgh, he worked on restoring sensation in lower-limb amputees using spinal cord stimulation, achieving the first evidence of restoring missing sensation in individuals with peripheral neuropathy. Before his time in the United States, he was a research assistant at the Singapore Institute of Neurotechnology, where he decoded brain responses to different fragrances and used sensory feedback using targeted TENS in upper-limb amputees. His work has been recognized by publishing twenty-one journal articles and four book chapters.
Outside the laboratory, Bose’s interests are as diverse as his professional pursuits. He enjoys cooking, savoring good food, recreational running, board games, and watching movies.
