Category: News

A member of the engineering and chemistry clubs at Magnificat High School in Rocky River, Lily Kuhlman was drawn to the field of engineering because it combines her math and science skills with her creative side. She has spent the past five years volunteering with Youth Challenge, a program that helps youth with disabilities participate in adaptive sports. Many of the youth she worked with had prosthetic devices, so she decided to reach out to Assistant Professor Emily Graczyk’s lab about interning at the Human Fusions Institute, where she spent the summer.

Kuhlman, who plans to study engineering when she starts college in Fall 2026, was drawn to the somatosensory neural engineering and human perception research that takes place in Graczyk’s lab and HFI. While she primarily focused on testing the Saturn II device, which measures and validates electrical pulses and wave forms generated to ensure its reliability, she also learned how to solder and build a circuit board and observed a study participant at the Cleveland Veterans Affairs Hospital.

Before Kuhlman embarked on her summer at HFI, her knowledge of engineering was limited. She takes great pride in the fact that her understanding has significantly increased and that she has acquired new skills. The experience of observing the study participant at the VA and witnessing the transformative impact of these devices on people’s lives was truly fascinating for her. “The transformative research, collaborative environment, and the creative approach to improving people’s lives intrigue me and have increased my intellectual curiosity,” she said.

As Kuhlman prepares to start her senior year, she looks forward to taking a hands-on mechanical engineering class. In this course, she and her classmates will work on disassembling and reassembling a motorcycle. She is still deciding which field of engineering she will study in college, but is leaning toward biomedical engineering because it bridges the gap between science and medicine, and because of her interest in healthcare. After college, she plans to use her engineering skills to continue making a difference in the lives of people with disabilities.

At eleven years old, Mahanthesh Ramchandra’s fascination with robotics was ignited by a friend’s older brother, an engineering student, who was building a robot for a capstone project. “I was completely captivated,” Ramchandra recalls. “What drew me in wasn’t just the technology, but the idea that you could create something tangible, something you could hold, feel, and physically interact with – something that existed in the real world, not just on a screen.” Less than a year later, Ramchandra built his own robot and ventured into the Google Science Fair, marking the beginning of his engineering journey.

Now, Ramchandra is the newest engineer at the Human Fusions Institute at Case Western Reserve University. His decision to join HFI was fueled by his excitement about the organization’s bimanual robots, haptic feedback systems, and virtual reality integration work. The prospect of working in a collaborative team that merges research and product development was a thrilling one for him. He sees himself as someone who thrives at the intersection of research and practical application. “Whether it’s securing $30K in grant funding for haptic glove development or winning hackathons with autonomous feeding systems, I love turning ambitious ideas into reality,” he said. “I believe the best robotics work happens when you can touch, feel, and interact with what you’re building – which is exactly what HFI is all about.”

Bringing significant experience from developing feeding assistance platforms at Cleveland State University and designing haptic feedback gloves at Quantanx Technologies, Ramchandra is well-equipped to contribute to HFI’s bimanual robot system controlled by haptic feedback. His work at these institutions has honed his skills in reducing system latency, making teleoperation more seamless, and ensuring precise and immediate haptic feedback. He is committed to creating a moment where the boundary between human and robot doesn’t exist.

With over 30 hackathon wins under his belt, Ramchandra is eager to work with the various robots at HFI, from bimanual robotic arms to humanoid and soft robots. “What I’m most excited about is the moment when we achieve truly seamless human-robot interaction, where operating the robot feels as natural as using your own hands,” he said. “There’s something deeply satisfying about building technology that people can physically interact with and feel connected to. I love turning ambitious ideas into reality. I believe the best robotics work happens when you can touch, feel, and interact with what you’re building.”

Outside of the engineering arena, Ramchandra enjoys rock climbing and slacklining.

Case Western Reserve University’s Human Fusions Institute welcomed a diverse group of interns as part of the Envoys program at CWRU’s Solar Durability and Lifetime Extension (SDLE) Research Center. Among them were Alexandria Brown, Alisha Fluker, Denise Huang, and Allyson Vinson, each bringing their unique perspectives and experiences to the program.

“It was great having four high school interns this summer,” said HFI Engineer Susan Schramfield. “We introduced them to new engineering concepts, and they were able to apply them to creatively solving problems right away. I’m excited to see how far these bright young students will go!”

Huang, a 2025 graduate of St. Martin de Porres High School in Cleveand, worked with Schramfield and HFI Lab Manager Mackenzie Elmer to code, assemble sensors, and organize HFI lab materials. Although she doesn’t plan to study engineering at Ohio State University this fall, she is proud of the variety of activities she was able to participate in at HFI this summer and the knowledge she gained. Through interactions with faculty, staff, and graduate students at HFI, Huang appreciated gaining insight into how technology can aid individuals with nerve injuries in regaining sensation in their bodies.

“The things that are done in this field are incredible,” said Huang. “It is helping many people who have lost function and giving them a chance to feel again.” She is excited to meet more people and start the next chapter of her life when she starts at Ohio State in a few weeks.

Vinson, a member of Solon High School’s Class of 2026, was inspired to apply to the Envoys program after hearing about it from her father, the former CWRU provost, and her mother, a CWRU faculty member. She plans to study engineering when she starts college in Fall 2026 and believed this internship was ‘the perfect opportunity to explore various aspects of engineering.’ The internship not only deepened her interest in the electrical aspects of engineering but also introduced her to the world of circuit boards and breadboards, shaping her future academic and career plans.

Vinson’s journey was one of personal growth and discovery. She spent her summer crafting and coding a foam sensor using Arduino and shadowing Ph.D. student Margaux Randolph to assist in making the electrodes for one of her studies. As her project progressed, she began collaborating with Ph.D. student Vlad Marcu on modeling and creating models of a nerve electrode cuff. She emerged from the summer with a sense of pride in her accomplishments and a wealth of new skills.

“Allyson was curious, productive, focused, and easy to work with,” said Marcu. “She was very much open to all sorts of things to learn, and that was cool!”

Vinson’s appreciation for the program’s interdisciplinary approach was evident. “I admire the specific approach that HFI takes on engineering and how closely HFI ties in the humanities aspect of engineering,” she shared. “I also appreciate the novelty and innovation of the products we worked on, and how these discoveries and breakthroughs are not widely known. Biomedical engineering, as I’ve learned through this program, is crucial for the future of medicine and technology, and for helping people.” She also enjoyed the lunch speaker series that SDLE had for interns.

“Mentoring the high school interns who worked at HFI this summer was great experience,” said Elmer. “I enjoyed getting to know each of them and learning about their interests. I hope they were able to develop a better understanding of what a career in science or engineering could look like.”

The Human Fusions Institute at Case Western Reserve University has pioneered the creation of prosthetic devices that have transformed the lives of those who have experienced limb loss. These devices have enabled individuals to hold and feel the touch of a loved one’s hand for the first time after losing their limb. Now, a dedicated group of HFI researchers, led by Assistant Professor Emily Graczyk, is collaborating with esteemed clinicians and scientists at the University of Chicago on a new frontier in sensory neuroprostheses. They are developing an implantable device that could potentially restore the sense of touch and reduce chronic pain for breast cancer patients who have undergone mastectomies. After more than a year of planning, designing electrodes, and testing their approach, the first implant was performed on the first participant in late May 2025.

Recruited for the study after receiving breast cancer treatment at the University of Chicago Medical Center, the patient received two implanted devices called C-FINEs around intercostal nerves in her chest. These intercostal nerves supply information to the brain about sensations on the breast, and the goal of the project is to use electrical stimulation through the C-FINEs to restore the sensory information lost after the breast is removed in the mastectomy.

The entire research team gathered in Chicago to observe the implant procedure. The patient first underwent a bilateral mastectomy as part of her cancer treatment by UChicago’s Nora Jaskowiak, M.D., who took time to preserve length on the intercostal nerves. After the breasts were removed, UChicago Plastic Surgeon Summer Hanson, M.D., Ph.D., identified the intercostal nerves and implanted the C-FINEs. The PI of the NIH grant funding the study, UChicago’s Stacy Tessler Lindau, M.D., also scrubbed in to assist with the surgery. Graczyk, who attended the surgery to share her expertise with the C-FINE technology, described the surgical team as “outstanding” and said she was “proud to see all the team’s hard work lead to this critical step.”

The patient is still in the recovery process and will return to the University of Chicago Medical Center on a biweekly basis over the next several months for research sessions. During these visits, the patient will undergo nerve stimulation tests to determine what sensations she experiences. This process is crucial for researchers to determine whether nerve stimulation can produce sensation and to understand what the sensation feels like. Eventually, her CFINEs will be removed when she undergoes breast reconstruction surgery as part of her ongoing cancer treatment. “We are very grateful that she was willing to be the first patient in this study and are excited for what we can learn together,” said Graczyk.

Over the next three years, the team hopes to implant the C-FINE devices in a total of eight mastectomy patients. This will enable researchers to understand the range of sensations possible with C-FINE stimulation and to identify differences among participants. In the future, they hope to link the nerve stimulation with inputs from a sensor placed within the breast and to assess the reliability of the sensation. While all implants for the current study will take place in Chicago, CWRU-based team members will frequently travel there for research sessions, most commonly postdoc Leah Roldan. Roldan played a critical role in the technical planning and coordination of the surgery and will oversee the nerve stimulation tests. Graczyk hopes implants can eventually be performed in Cleveland as well.

The overall project idea originated from Lindau, a gynecologist who works with breast cancer patients. Lindau noticed women were not having sensation after mastectomies and envisioned how using stimulation through a neural interface could restore the sense of touch after breast removal. The CWRU team includes Graczyk, Roldan, postdoc Rohit Bose, and Human Fusions Institute director Dustin Tyler, who is serving as a consultant.

Andrew Chen concluded​​ his undergraduate journey at Case Western Reserve University with a string of significant achievements. He was awarded the prestigious Ohio Space Grant Consortium Fellowship, presented his research to a global audience, and was recognized with the Senior Award for Research Potential at his graduation.

Chen was nominated for the Senior Award for Research Potential by Assistant Professor Alexis E. Block. “From the moment he joined my Social and Physical Human-Robot Interaction (SaPHaRI) Lab, he hit the ground running and quickly became an integral part of our team,” she said. “It has been a genuine pleasure working with him and watching him grow over the past year, not just as a researcher, but as a person. When he decided to pursue a master’s thesis in my lab, I was thrilled.”

As Chen embarks on his graduate studies, he is filled with excitement about the future. He will be developing an AI-driven robotic system that uses gesture-based movements to adapt behavior based on human feedback. “Before college, I never had any thought of being an engineer,” said Chen, who originally leaned toward pursuing a computer science or mathematics degree. However, his academic journey led him to a new path, and he is now eager to continue contributing to and learning about the latest robotics research as a graduate student.

The research award came with a $100 monetary prize.

Noah Medrano’s 2024-25 academic year was marked by numerous accomplishments. He was named a Hispanic Scholarship Fund scholar, presented his research at a conference for the first time, and most recently received the Robert L. Shurter Prize for leadership in extracurricular activities. Assistant Professor Alexis E. Block nominated him for this award due to his outstanding leadership in research, HackCWRU, residential life, and CWRU’s self-care club.

Medrano’s international research engagement was a highlight of this past year. In March, he traveled to Australia to present his work on the Affect-Sensing Wearables project at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). His project aims to support individuals through a wearable device to enhance social-physical interaction. “I had an amazing time getting to know the HRI research community and gained valuable insight from other researchers regarding my current project,” said Medrano, who was also selected to serve as a student volunteer at the conference.

In addition to his research, Medrano spent the spring semester as treasurer of HackCWRU, a hackathon for students at CWRU and neighboring schools. He managed purchases, planned and organized events, and helped the club raise over $12,000 for prizes and facilities costs.

Medrano’s impact extends beyond engineering at CWRU; he also actively contributes to campus residential life. Last year, he served as the Smith House Representative and Chair of Programming for the Juniper Community Council within the Residence Hall Association (RHA). In addition to planning and hosting events for residents of Juniper halls, he led RHA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion fair. He was eventually promoted to Vice President of Residential Services on the Executive Board of the RHA. As an RHA leader, he addressed facility concerns, leads the RHA’s Advocacy Committee, and serves as National Communications Coordinator for next year’s National Residence Hall Honorary. As the Spring 2026 Regional Business Conference facilities chair, he will manage delegations at conferences for both CWRU and the National Residence Hall Honorary.

Medrano is also co-president of CWRU’s self-care club, Se-xy (Self-carE, Xoxo You!). This organization hosts self-care events every two weeks to enhance students’ well-being and mental health and to foster a positive environment.

As Medrano continues his undergraduate studies, he aims to create systems that support the mental health and well-being of vulnerable or underrepresented populations. He also seeks to deepen his expertise in data analysis, recognizing its importance in modern research. “I am working to improve my research skills and gather experience designing and conducting user studies that involve generating insights for the general population,” he said.

When Mauricio Negrón was growing up in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he looked up to several engineers, including his father. Negrón also had “a natural affinity for math and an aching curiosity to know the answers to scientific questions.” Once he came to Case Western Reserve University for his undergraduate studies, he was drawn to the Social and Physical Human-Robot Interaction (SaPHaRI) Lab and the Human Fusions Institute for their research in creating technology in the service of humanity.

“Engineering has taught me to approach complex problems with patience, structure, and resilience,” said Negrón, who appreciates the balance of analytical problem-solving, innovation, and creativity the discipline offers. “These skills have proven invaluable in academic settings and my personal life. Being able to navigate uncertainty with confidence and discipline is something I consider a lasting achievement.” Drawn to the SaPHaRI Lab for its supportive and collaborative environment, he looks forward to continuing his hands-on research when he returns in the fall

In addition to his engineering accomplishments, Negrón recently received the Italian Book Prize, an annual award presented to an outstanding student of Italian in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. “He kept up the rigorous pace and met the demands of his first-year Italian courses,” said Professor Denise Caterinacci, who nominated him. “He was enthusiastic and attentive, engaged, and accountable for his progress, frequently checking to see if there were steps he could take to improve even more. He was simply exemplary, as a student of Italian, and it was a real pleasure to meet and work with him!”

Upon his graduation from CWRU (expected May 2027), Negrón plans to return to Puerto Rico. He is committed to playing a key role in supporting the island’s development, with a particular focus on addressing its infrastructure challenges. “There is a strong need for committed engineers and professionals to help modernize and rebuild key systems across the island, and I hope to play a part in that effort.”

Jonah Mudge has been a graduate teaching assistant for EBME 308: Biomedical Signals and Systems for the past three fall semesters. “My favorite thing about TAing is when a student grasps a difficult concept,” he said. “It’s so rewarding to see their faces light up when they suddenly get it!” He enjoys teaching and is considering a career as a research professor after he graduates with his Ph.D.

Recently, Mudge was honored with the Excellence in Graduate Teaching Assistantship award from Case Western Reserve University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. The EBME 308 course instructor, Assistant Professor Debra McGivney, described Mudge as one of the best TAs she ever had. “His weekly recitation sessions were highly attended, and students appreciate his careful and methodical approach to problem solving,” she said. “He has a very calm demeanor, which was welcome by all during quizzes and exams.”

McGivney also appreciated Mudge’s proactive approach to managing the immense workload that comes from serving as a TA for a class with over 100 students enrolled. His review sheets on complex numbers and basic circuits, two areas where students struggle, were particularly helpful. “Jonah gave helpful feedback to Professor Bolu Ajiboye (co-instructor) and me on how to manage this workload, and considering his feedback, we made changes in grading and other procedures to improve the graduate TA experience,” said McGivney. “His leadership within the TA team, particularly in his second and third semesters with the course, was invaluable in keeping things running smoothly.”

Mudge described CWRU as “a great place for research and innovation.” A member of Assistant Professor Emily Graczyk’s lab in the Human Fusions Institute, he was drawn to biomedical engineering because it combined his interest in healthcare with his passion for creating. In the lab, he is investigating the sense of limb position and movement in people with upper limb loss, a crucial area of research with the potential to improve amputees’ lives significantly. He hopes to apply his findings to non-disabled individuals in teleoperation or virtual reality scenarios, further expanding the potential impact of his work.

Primarily interested in developing sensory-enabled, bidirectional prostheses, Mudge has enjoyed participating in surgical planning, sensory neural interface implantation, and the first experiments with upper extremity limb loss study participants during his time at CWRU. “It’s pretty cool to see someone’s reaction to feeling sensation on a hand they lost years or even decades ago.” As he continues his Ph.D. studies, he plans to continue neural interfacing research and potentially design neural interfaces.

 

From a young age, Austin Wilson was driven by an insatiable curiosity about how things worked. This interest led him to join the Science Olympiad in middle school and the Robotics team in high school. That passion propelled him to earn a B.S. in Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University in 2022. Now pursuing his M.S. in Computer Engineering at CWRU’s Human Fusions Institute, Wilson received an Ohio Space Grant Consortium fellowship to support his graduate research. He recently had the opportunity to present his work at the Ohio Aerospace Institute in Brook Park, Ohio.

Wilson is a member of Assistant Professor Alexis E. Block’s SaPHaRI (Social and Physical Human-Robot Interaction) Lab. His research focuses on AstroPsych, a novel, therapist-guided multimodal AI framework for real-time mental health support. Integrating principles from human-computer interaction, human-robot interaction, and psychology, the project explores how technology can provide meaningful emotional support when human connection is limited.
In addition to his recent presentation at the Ohio Space Grant Consortium, Wilson also shared his research with an international audience at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. His workshop paper marked his first peer-reviewed publication as part of HFI and was presented remotely at the conference.

“I’m incredibly proud of Austin for presenting our research at the Ohio Space Grant Consortium,” said Block. “He did an excellent job summarizing complex work with accuracy and clarity, and it was exciting to see how much interest his presentation generated. He was a fantastic representative of our lab and CWRU.”

Andrew Chen’s father took him to Ohio University’s annual Physics & Astronomy Open House when he was a child. “I remember being captivated by telescopes that zoomed in to show details of the sun and moon,” he recalls. “While I enjoyed chemistry experiments with liquid nitrogen, engineering with turtle bots and hovercraft, and physics with grape microwave plasma, at the time, I lacked the context to appreciate these experiences fully.” Having enjoyed his mathematics classes in middle and high school, he was inspired by his interest in computers’ inner workings to build several computers as a high school student and pursue a computer science degree in college.

Now, in his last semester as an undergraduate at Case Western Reserve University, Chen has been awarded an Ohio Space Grant Consortium Fellowship to support his master’s thesis research next year in Dr. Alexis E. Block’s SaPHaRI (Social and Physical Human-Robot Interaction) Lab, which is part of the Human Fusions Institute. Entitled RoboSOAR (Robotic System for Optimized Adaptive inteRaction), his research aims to develop an AI-driven robotic system capable of gesture-based movements that modify its behavior based on human feedback. He is creating a generalizable framework for various tasks and robotic platforms. “I am excited and looking forward to using the recent methods that I learned through the papers to create something that I never thought I would create before,” said Chen, who has studied the recent state-of-the-art models.

Chen was initially hesitant to apply for the fellowship as he only learned about the opportunity a few days before the deadline. After realizing “there would be no downside to applying, [he] and Dr. Block started creating drafts for the fellowship proposal. By writing this application, [they] were able to figure out the scope of [his] thesis and research additional applications that [this] idea could be applied to.” He also appreciates that the fellowship covers his tuition for the 2025-26 academic year.

As he prepares to graduate with his B.S. in electrical and computer engineering, Chen is most thankful for “meaningful experiences from conversations with [his] friends, classmates, and professors” at CWRU, which have given him different perspectives on his work. Joining the SaPHaRI lab in August 2024 led to a new interest in human-robot interaction, and he is now following robotics tech news regularly. “I’m always curious about the latest research breakthroughs and new ideas emerging. When I was younger, I would watch videos of robots and machines, but I never fathomed doing it myself.” He found the lab through the CWRU website and is thankful to have met many researchers through the SaPHaRI lab and HFI.

“I am incredibly proud of Andrew for being awarded this prestigious fellowship to support his master’s thesis research,” said Dr. Block. “This recognition is well-deserved and reflects his creativity, dedication, and technical skills. I’m excited to continue working with him on this important work!”

 

On March 14, Sedona Cady defended her Ph.D. dissertation, “Perceptual, Functional, and Psychosocial Impacts of a Wirelessly Connected Implanted Sensorimotor Interface for Bidirectional Upper Limb Neuroprostheses.”

While at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Cady was instrumental in validating a high channel count, wirelessly connected, implanted somatosensory electrical neurostimulation and sensing (iSENS) system to restore sensation and myoelectric control to individuals with upper limb loss. Cady was part of a collaborative effort to implement a crossover clinical trial in which one study participant with upper limb loss used the iSENS system with a bidirectional prosthesis at home for three months. Long-term use of the iSENS system with the bidirectional prosthesis yielded several functional and psychosocial improvements, highlighting the significance of implanted interfaces to improve the lives of prosthesis users. In 2023, Cady and a study participant had the opportunity to present the system at a Demo Day at The Pentagon in Arlington, Va.

A native of Mokena, Illinois, Cady came to CWRU after earning her B.S. in biomedical engineering from Ohio State University. She was drawn to CWRU for its clinical research in neural engineering.

Primarily interested in closed-loop neuromodulation devices, sensory neuroscience, and rehabilitation engineering, Cady is currently applying for biomedical engineering and clinical research scientist industry positions related to the research and development of neuromodulation devices. She thanks her Ph.D. advisor, Human Fusions Institute director Dustin Tyler, for his guidance, mentorship, and support.

Members of Case Western Reserve University’s SaPHaRI Lab recently had the opportunity to present their research internationally. Three workshop papers were accepted to a workshop at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI): AstroPsych: A Multimodal AI-Driven Framework for Real-Time Mental Health Support in Communication-Limited Environments by Austin Wilson and Alexis E. Block, RoboSOAR: Robotic System for Optimized Adaptive inteRaction by Andrew Chen*, Ashraf Ibraheem* (*indicates the two authors contributed equally),  Ben Richardson (Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems), and Alexis E. Block, and Participatory Co-Design of Affect-Sensing Wearables for Emotional Expression and Social Interaction Support by Noah Medrano, Alice Liu, Ankur Mehta (UCLA), and Alexis E. Block. SaPHaRI Lab Director Block and undergraduate student Medrano traveled to Melbourne, Australia, to present their research, while M.S. student Wilson, B.S./M.S. student Chen, and B.S. students Ibraheem and Liu gave their presentations virtually. For most of the students, it was their first accepted paper. 

“For such a young lab, I’m incredibly proud that we had such a significant presence at the leading conference in our field this year,” said Block. Liu, interested in the intersections of humans, cognition, and technology, shared her mentor’s pride and described contributing to the workshop paper as among her proudest STEM accomplishments so far. Chen enjoyed researching different types of machine learning and artificial intelligence while working on his paper, reviewing “state of the art” literature, and laying out an overview for the “in-the-wild user study” that will be conducted later in the project.  

Whether in-person or virtually, Block’s students actively participated in mentoring sessions with leading HRI experts and discussed their research in depth. Their active involvement in the research process and eagerness to learn and improve their work were evident to the mentors. Block noted that the mentors were “highly impressed” with her students’ work and provided helpful suggestions to strengthen their contributions further.  

Liu described the feedback she received on her first paper as “important and insightful,” while Chen appreciated his mentors’ varied perspectives and design modification suggestions. “It was interesting to hear other researchers’ opinions on our project and to see how mentors’ different backgrounds in HRI shape their interpretations and evaluations of a research project,” he said. Ibraheem added, “I left the conference with insights that emerged from our mentors’ diverse experiences and backgrounds. These discussions broadened my understanding of a range of topics and helped me solidify a meaningful direction for my ongoing research.” Wilson appreciated that his session “raised new considerations [he] hadn’t previously considered,” ultimately expanding his perspective and helping him refine his approach moving forward. 

SaPHaRI lab members made a strong impact at the conference through their research presentations and by enriching the experience for others. Medrano served as a student volunteer throughout the entire conference and was instrumental to the event’s success. While Block served as a mentor for the “Workshop Your Study Design” and “HRI Pioneers” workshop sessions, the latter of which she participated in (2018) and later chaired (2019). She also played a key role as a jury member for the Best Demonstration Award.