Taiyun Chi has been named a recipient of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) Graduate Fellowship for Medical Applications. This fellowship is the highest honor for graduate students in the IEEE MTT-S, and Chi is the first Georgia Tech student to receive this fellowship in medical applications since the program was established in 2008.

A School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Ph.D. student, Chi received this award for his proposed Ph.D. research entitled “A CMOS Multi-Functional Cellular Thermal Actuation/Sensing Array for Reconfigurable Localized Cell Heating, Ablation, and Manipulation.” He is a member of the Georgia Tech Electronics and Micro-System Lab and is advised by Hua Wang, the Demetrius T. Paris Junior Professor in ECE.

Recently, there has been increasing research interest in applying microwave engineering techniques in the fields of biology and medical engineering. For instance, researchers have demonstrated microwave biomedical imaging such as magnetic resonance imaging and mm-wave/THz non-invasive imaging, as well as microwave dielectric spectroscopy applications. However, very few designs focus on bio-actuation systems, especially for cell-based assays and applications. Cells are the basic biological units of all known living organisms, and proper cell actuation and manipulation are the key prerequisites to further advance cellular studies.

Chi’s proposed research leverages microwave techniques to achieve cell actuation and manipulation. In particular, the proposed cellular actuation array can generate localized thermal stress and electromagnetic field to alter the functionalities of the local cells. The array will serve as a multi-modality cell actuation/manipulation platform and facilitate a plethora of high-impact biomedical areas, such as cancer studies, neural network characterization, and large-scale cell-based assays for low-cost drug screening.    

The IEEE MTT-S Graduate Fellowship also recognizes Chi’s past research and educational achievements, including the Guo Moruo Scholarship (highest undergraduate honor at the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Science and Technology of China), the 2012 Georgia Tech Georgia Electronic Design Center Fellowship, the 2014 IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC) Best Student Paper Award Finalist, the 2014 Texas Instruments IEEE CICC Student Scholarship Award, and 2015 International Solid-State Circuits Conference Analog Devices Inc. Outstanding Student Designer Award.

Chi will be presented with the IEEE MTT-S Graduate Fellowship at the 2016 IEEE International Microwave Symposium, to be held May 22-27 in San Francisco, California.