The Proud Members of Our BAST Laboratory

We all come from a different side of the world. However, we all believe, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”(John 8:32)

MinJun Kim Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Dr. MinJun Kim is the Robert C. Womack Endowed Chair Professor in Engineering at Southern Methodist University. He has been developing new approaches to control small-scale robots in in vivo environments for drug delivery as well as fabricate solid-state nanopores for in-depth understanding of protein-protein interactions and membrane deformability of viruses and vesicles.
mjkim@lyle.smu.edu
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Harry Wang

Electrical Engineer

Harry Wang is a doctoral student who is developing reconfigurable modular robots for assembly and disassembly. He received his B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Southern Methodist University in 2020 and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in 2022.
zhengguangw@mail.smu.edu

Anuruddha Bhattacharjee

Mechanical Engineer

Anuruddha Bhattacharjee is a Ph.D. student at BAST Lab. His research focuses on investigating assembly/disassembly mechanisms of modular micro-robots and their application in small-scale manufacturing. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 2017.
abhattacharjee@mail.smu.edu

Kamruzzaman Joty

Mechanical Engineer

Kamruzzaman Joty is a Ph.D. candidate in the Applied Science Program in the Lyle School of Engineering at Southern Methodist University and a Graduate Research Assistant at the BAST Laboratory. He is specializing in fabricating and utilizing SANE sensors to analyze unfolding and detection of selective proteins and protein-receptor (PR) complexes by optical trapping and electrical recapturing at the molecular level. He received his B.Eng. (Hons.) in Mechanical Engineering from SEGi University, Malaysia in 2022.
kjoty@smu.edu
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Gokhan Kararsiz

Mechanical Engineer

Gokhan Kararsiz is a Ph.D. student at BAST Lab. His research focuses on designing control algorithms for the motion of the alginate artificial cell in uncertain fluid environment. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Yildiz Technical University in 2013 and Bogazici University in 2017, respectively.
gkararsiz@mail.smu.edu

Yasin Cagatay Duygu

Mechanical Engineer

Yasin Cagatay Duygu is a Ph.D. student at BAST Lab. His research focuses on haptics-assisted microrobotics. He received his B.S degree in Mechanical Engineering from Istanbul Technical University in 2020.
aduygu@smu.edu

Grace Josephson

Mechanical Engineer

Grace is an undergraduate Pre-med/Engineering student at SMU conducting research on nanopores. Grace has competed internationally in figure skating, and is now a coach. When recharging, Grace enjoys composing music and playing the violin. Bach and Tchaikovsky are her favorite composers.
gjosephson@mail.smu.edu

Navod Thyashan

Mechanical Engineer

Navod Thyashan is a Ph.D. student at Lyle School of Engineering, Southern Methodist University and a research assistant at BAST lab. His research focuses on utilizing SANE sensors to investigate the deformability of soft nanoparticles like viruses and liposomes. He received his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka in 2021.
nsudirikkujayaweera@smu.edu
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Ryan McGhee

Mechanical Engineer

Ryan is a junior mechanical engineering major from Frisco, TX. He is the treasurer for the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) chapter at SMU, as well as a peer mentor for the THRIVE Scholars program. Ryan is a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow (SURF), who is passionate about fluid mechanics, robotics, and music.
rmcghee@mail.smu.edu

Matthew Odonohue

Biomedical Engineer

Matthew Odonohue is a Ph.D. candidate in the Applied Science Program in the Lyle School of Engineering. His research focuses on utilizing a bimodal nanopore sensor for single-molecule analysis, analyzing and characterizing cancer-related proteins and viruses, among other analyte. He received his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from The Ohio State University in 2020. When not conducting research, Matthew likes to shred on his 7-string guitar.
modonohue@mail.smu.edu

Benjamin Kuo

Mechanical Engineer

Ben is an undergraduate research assistant majoring in Mechanical Engineering and minoring in Computer Science. He is conducting research on solid state nanopores and focuses on helping automate the data analysis portion of the project. In his free time, he can be found sending V5 boulders on the rock wall.
bkuo@mail.smu.edu
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Madhav Ghimire Ph.D.

Physicist

Dr. Madhav Ghimire is a Post Doctoral Fellow at BAST Lab. His research focuses on developing bimodal electrical and optical nanosensors for single-molecule analysis. In addition, he is studying various small molecules using solid-state nanopores at the single molecular level. After graduating (B.Sc) from Tribhuvan University in 2010, he received his first master's degree (M.Sc) in astronomy & physics in 2012 from the University of Delhi and a second master's degree (MS) from The University of Memphis in 2017 with a materials science concentration. In between, he worked as a full-time Physics lecturer at the National School of Sciences located in his home country Nepal. He then obtained his doctoral degree (PhD) in 2018 from Virginia Commonwealth University being enrolled in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology program conducted jointly by the physics & chemistry departments.
mghimire@mail.smu.edu
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Cole Gordon

Mechanical Engineer

Cole is a sophomore mechanical engineering major from Chicago, IL. He is a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow (SURF), where he is conducting research on single molecule analysis. Outside of the lab, Cole spends his free time playing for the SMU club baseball team.
ctgordon@mail.smu.edu