Kilachand Center researchers open their labs and minds to advance science in new directions.

Our world-class faculty share both space and ideas, seeking that fertile ground where interests intersect, problems find solutions, and research moves in unforeseen ways.
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Center Affiliations

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25 result(s) found.

  • Headshot of Samagya Banskota

    Samagya Banskota, PhD

    Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
    Biography: Precision genome editing technologies can potentially treat the root causes of several genetic diseases by making precise and targeted edits to the DNA. However, safe and effective delivery methods are needed to translate this potential into a therapeutic reality. Banskota’s research interests lie in the intersection of synthetic biology, protein engineering, drug delivery, and […]
  • Headshot of David Boas

    David Boas, PhD

    Professor, Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering Director, Neurophotonics Center
    Biography: Boas is an internationally recognized expert in biomedical optics and is a pioneer in the emerging field of neurophotonics, which utilizes advances in photonics to further our understanding of the brain. He has recently joined BU from the radiology department at Massachusetts General Hospital, where his research led to breakthrough optical methods to study […]
  • Headshot of Christopher Chen

    Christopher Chen, MD, PhD

    Professor, Biomedical Engineering, and Materials Science Engineering, College of Engineering Director, Biological Design Center
    Biography: One of the world’s leading experts on regenerative medicine, Chen investigates tissue engineering and mechanobiology, which combines engineering and biology to study how physical forces and changes in cell or tissue mechanics affect development, physiology, and disease. In particular, Chen is studying the cooperation between adhesive, mechanical, and biochemical signaling in the regulation of […]
  • Xiaojun Cheng headshot

    Xiaojun Cheng, PhD

    Research Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
    Areas of Interest Brain imaging, speckle-based techniques, functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), microscopy. Research Areas Our research revolves around cutting-edge speckle-based optical techniques to measure both animal and human brain dynamics and function, particularly laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) and speckle contrast optical spectroscopy (SCOS). We are also working on other brain imaging modalities including […]
  • Headshot of Douglas Densmore

    Douglas Densmore, PhD

    Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Materials Science Engineering, College of Engineering
    Biography: A computer engineer, Densmore’s research focuses on the development of tools for the specification, design, and assembly of synthetic biological systems, drawing upon his experience with embedded system-level design and electronic design automation. He is also the director of the Cross-disciplinary Integration of Design Automation Research group at the University, where his research team develops […]
  • Headshot of Anna Devor

    Anna Devor, PhD

    Professor, Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
    Biography: Devor has a broad background in cellular and systems-level neuroscience. Her research program is focused on real time detection of brain activity across scales. Devor and her collaborators assemble a suite of microscopic technologies that, collectively, allow precise and quantitative probing of a large number of concrete brain activity parameters. Then, they combine multimodal […]
  • Headshot of Jeroen Eyckmans

    Jeroen Eyckmans, PhD

    Research Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
    Biography: Prof. Eyckmans’s research program aims to understands the mechanical and biochemical mechanisms that drive tissue repair (scarring) versus tissue regeneration in response to injury. Through an interdisciplinary approach combining microfabrication, nanotechnology and molecular biology, his group develops novel biomimetic models to study wound closure and extracellular matrix remodeling of soft (skin, tendon, ligament) and […]
  • Headshot of Xue Han

    Xue Han, PhD

    Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
    Biography: Han joined the biomedical engineering faculty in 2010. She is a pioneer in the field of optogenetics, in which scientists reengineer nerve cells, or neurons, to respond to light, using molecules called opsins. By finding ways to implant opsins into neurons, Han has given researchers a simple tool to turn neurons on and off, […]
  • Headshot of Michael Hasselmo

    Michael Hasselmo, DPhil

    Professor, Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences Director, Center for Systems Neuroscience
    Biography: A leading researcher in neuroscience, Hasselmo uses electrophysiological recording to study how the firing patterns of neurons may contribute to memory-guided behavior. As director of the Center for Systems Neuroscience, he supports collaborations among brain behavior researchers from the Charles River and Medical Campuses. He is the principal investigator of a new Multidisciplinary University […]
  • Headshot of Marc Howard

    Marc Howard, PhD

    Professor, Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences
    Biography: Since joining the psychological & brain sciences department in 2011, Howard has worked on projects involving new mathematical models and behavioral and computational tools to better understand the mechanisms of memory and how the brain works. He is recognized as one of the top researchers in bridging cognition and systems-level neuroscience and is a […]
  • Headshot of Mark Howe

    Mark Howe, PhD

    Assistant Professor, Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences
    Biography: Driven by questions of motivation and movement, Howe’s research is focused on gaining deeper understanding of neural mechanisms and circuitry. By studying functional and dysfunctional neural systems, Howe aims to inform treatment approaches for Parkinson’s disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and addiction. Howe developed a novel approach to striatum imaging that contributed to groundbreaking findings in […]
  • Headshot of Ahmad Khalil

    Ahmad (Mo) Khalil, PhD

    Professor, Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering Associate Director, Biological Design Center
    Biography: Khalil and his laboratory team are developing new synthetic biology approaches to examine and engineer the functions of living cells, such as how they make decisions and communicate. They are particularly interested in molecular systems that enable cells to retain memory of past experiences, a research interest that has taken them across diverse biological […]
  • Headshot of Joseph Larkin

    Joe Larkin, PhD

    Assistant Professor, Biology and Physics, College of Arts & Sciences
    Biography: Using microbial populations as a model, Larkin and his lab team seek to understand how new self-perpetuation strategies arise throughout the course of evolution. They study how the physical and chemical environment influences microbes and how microbes, in turn, engineer that very environment. More specifically, Larkin’s research examines how bacterial biofilms change local conditions […]
  • Headshot of Heidi Meyer

    Heidi Meyer, PhD

    Assistant Professor, Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences
    Biography: Meyer and her lab team study learning, behavior, and affective neurodevelopment during adolescence, focusing on interneuron tuning of prefrontal-based neural circuits. Their approach leverages behavioral, systems, and molecular neuroscience techniques to examine the cognitive and neurodevelopmental underpinnings of affective regulation. Meyer’s research aims to address how behavioral patterns are learned based on an individual’s […]
  • Headshot of John Ngo

    John Ngo, PhD

    Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
    Biography: Ngo joined the faculty at Boston University in 2015. In 2016, he was named a Reidy Family Career Development Professor, which recognizes junior faculty who are emerging future leaders in their respective fields. Ngo’s research applies principles of evolution, chemistry, and engineering to develop new tools for visualizing, measuring, and controlling biomolecules in living […]
  • Headshot of Tyler Perrachione

    Tyler Perrachione, PhD

    Associate Professor, Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences, College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College
    Biography: Perrachione directs the Communication Neuroscience Research Lab. He and his team are dissecting the brain’s capacity for communication and speech perception. How do we learn a new language? How do we recognize people by the sound of their voice? Why do some children struggle with reading? Dyslexia is one of Perrachione’s primary areas of […]
  • Headshot of Steve Ramirez

    Steve Ramirez, PhD

    Associate Professor, Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences
    Biography: Ramirez aims to “learn how memory works and then how to hijack it.” His research focuses on revealing the neural circuit mechanisms of memory storage and retrieval, and artificially modulating memories to combat maladaptive states. Using optogenetics, Ramirez has located memory traces in the mouse brain and has explored how to reactivate these traces, […]
  • Headshot of Ben Scott

    Benjamin Scott, PhD

    Assistant Professor, Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences
    Biography: In 2018, Scott joined the psychological and brain sciences department, where he directs the Laboratory of Comparative Cognition. His research revolves around the development and application of new tools to study the neural basis of cognition and complex, learned behavior, with a focus on working memory, problem-solving, and decision-making. His team is delving into […]
  • Headshot of Matthias Stangl

    Matthias Stangl, PhD

    Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
    Biography: Research in Stangl's lab focuses on how the human brain supports critical cognitive and behavioral functions in our everyday life, such as spatial navigation and memory, and on the neural mechanisms that underlie age-related impairments in these functions. From a methodological perspective, his team employs novel neurotechnologies and advanced methodologies such as deep brain […]
  • Headshot of Chantal Stern

    Chantal E. Stern, DPhil

    Professor and Chair, Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences Director, Cognitive Neuroimaging Center
    Biography: Stern is an expert in human brain imaging and was a member of the research team that pioneered the development of functional magnetic resonance imaging, including early work focusing on the human hippocampus. Her lab’s primary goal is to study how the normal brain encodes, stores, and subsequently recognizes visual, spatial, and verbal information. […]
  • Martin Thunemann headshot

    Martin Thunemann, PhD

    Research Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
    Areas of Interest: Neuroimaging, electrophysiology, neurovascular coupling, neurometabolic coupling, cerebral blood flow regulation, neurological and psychiatric diseases, cognition, neurotechnology, transgenic animals, nitric oxide, cGMP Research Areas: Cellular and systems-level neuroscience, microscopy, electrophysiology, preclinical imaging
  • Headshot of John White

    John White, PhD

    Professor and Chairman, Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
    Biography: White employs engineering approaches to better understand how information is processed in the brain. Combining computational modeling, electrophysiological and optical techniques, and imaging methods, he and his team have worked to advance new biomedical devices to understand memory disorders and epilepsy. A fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, White has […]
  • Headshot of Wilson Wong

    Wilson Wong, PhD

    Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
    Biography: Wong, a synthetic biologist and cancer therapy researcher, works to control immune system responses to cancer by genetically modifying T-cells to improve cancer-killing capabilities while minimizing the side effects. His lab focuses on the application of metabolic- and immune-cell engineering to rapidly and predictably produce desired properties to treat diseases. As part of this […]
  • Headshot of Zeba Wunderlich

    Zeba Wunderlich, PhD

    Associate Professor, Biology, College of Arts & Sciences
    Biography: Wunderlich and her lab team are studying gene regulatory networks, which are required for virtually every process in an animal from development to immunity. Specifically, they are exploring how a gene regulatory network's tasks influence its architecture, robustness, and evolvability. To probe these questions, Wunderlich uses two model systems: the Drosophila early embryonic patterning […]
  • Meryam Yucel headshot

    Meryem Yücel, PhD

    Research Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering Technical Director, Neurophotonics Center
    Areas of Interest Functional Near-InfraRed Spectroscopy method and translating it to clinical applications and disseminating its use in basic neuroscience research. Research Areas Functional brain imaging