Omar T
- Research Program Mentor

PhD candidate at Illinois Institute of Technology

Expertise

Biomedical Engineering, STEM in general, medical, prosthetics, Electronics, Robotics

Bio

My name is Omar. During my undergraduate years at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), I participated in Neural Prosthetics Research, during which I published my first paper. I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at IIT in collaboration with the University of Chicago and the University of Alberta. My research focuses on developing a medical implant for the spinal cord that will, hopefully, restore standing and stepping in individuals with severe spinal cord injury. My goal is to help students find a true passion for science and engineering and to motivate them to pursue a professional career in STEM. Outside of academics, I enjoy going to the gym, traveling, and riding my bike.

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Prosthetic Arm

In this application-based project, you will learn how to design a functional prosthetic limb. You will learn how to use CAD software to design different components of the limb. You will use an Arduino microcontroller and motors to provide mobility. The commands used to drive the motors will be obtained using a custom-built, analog, electromyography (EMG) sensing-circuit.

Modeling physiological systems

You will learn how to model a sophisticated organ system using ordinary and partial differential equations. You will use a numerical computing platform, such as MATLAB, to solve these equations and accurately predict the behavior of the human body. By the end of this project, you will appreciate the complexity of the human body, read scientific papers, build a physical prototype and submit your own report.

Coding skills

MATLAB, Python, R

Languages I know

Arabic

Teaching experience

I have tutored students in biomedical engineering in the Academic Resource Center (ARC) at the Illinois Institute of Technology for two consecutive years. I mentored an undergraduate student in my laboratory and supervised his work in my laboratory.

Credentials

Work experience

Tempus Labs Inc (2017 - 2018)

Medical Imaging Software Engineer

Education

Illinois Institute of Technology

BS Bachelor of Science (2018)

Biomedical Engineering

University of Chicago

Unknown Degree

Computational Neuroscience