Dr. Sameer Sonkusale

In this tutorial, we will discuss recent progress in the area of optical and electronic sensor arrays for chemical and biological sensing. The first platform to be discussed will be an optoelectronic nose based on chemically sensitive optical dyes encoded onto silica beads for detection of volatile organic compounds in ambient air.  The second platform will be a microfluidic optoelectronic sensor array for detection of dissolved volatile organic compounds in saliva as an early screening for stomach cancer. The third platform will focus on the design and implementation of high-performance CMOS imagers that can measure both intensity and lifetime of chromophores with applications in lifetime-based chemical sensing. The imagers have been demonstrated for the detection of oxygen in water and biological samples. The talk will discuss key opportunities for optoelectronic sensors and the need for intimate integration with CMOS-based instrumentation.

Biography:

Sameer Sonkusale is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Tufts University, where he holds joint appointments in the departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical and Biological Engineering. He also served as a visiting professor at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital of the Harvard Medical School during 2011-2012 and 2018-2019, respectively. In 2012-2013, Dr. Sonkusale also served as the Associate Dean of Graduate Education in the School of Engineering at Tufts University. He currently directs an interdisciplinary research group, the Nano Lab, which focuses on developing new devices and systems for healthcare, biology, life sciences, and the environment.

Dr. Sonkusale is a prolific inventor of several biomedical devices, including "smart bandages," "smart sutures," and "lab-on-a-pill." His innovation on "lab-on-a-pill" was listed as one of the top eight biomedical innovations in the world for the year 2020 in the STAT Madness challenge. The technologies developed in his lab have been licensed to several companies and have resulted in the creation of venture backed startup companies.

Dr. Sonkusale earned his MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and has received several awards, including the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2010. He was also honored with a Distinguished Alumni award from his alma mater, BITS Pilani. He is Radha K Maheshwari Distinguished Lecturers  at USU in 2023, and IEEE CAS Distinguished Lecturer in 2024-2025. Dr. Sonkusale is also an alumnus of the National Academy of Engineering US Frontiers of Engineering meeting in 2015, and the National Academy of Sciences Arab-America Frontiers meeting in 2014 and 2016. Dr. Sonkusale serves on the editorial boards of several prominent journals, including Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group), IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, PLoS One, and Electronic Letters. He is a senior member of the IEEE and a member of OSA, MRS, BMES, and AAAS.