Rollins Lab People

Meet the people of the Rollins Lab in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University.

Primary Investigator

Lab Members

Brecken Blackburn, PhD

Research Assistant Professor

Brecken graduated Cornell University with a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2015. She earned her PhD in 2021 working on OCT elastography.

Dushani Dunukara

PhD Student

Dushani completed her B.Sc. in Physics from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and currently working on phase decorrelation and elastography OCT techniques on imaging cornea

Jia Fan

PhD Student

Jia Fan graduated from Jiangnan University with a B.S. degree and Northeastern University with a M.S. degree in Bioengineering. She is now working on optical imaging of embryonic cardiac electrophysiology.

Juan Perez

PhD Student

Juan graduated from Case Western Reserve University in 2022 with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and minor in German. Currently, he is working on a project in aiding clinicians that perform cardiac ablation procedures by developing a catheter that uses Polarization Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography (PSOCT) as well as Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS).

Michael Douglass

PhD Student

Michael graduated Case Western Reserve University in 2019 with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and Engineering Physics. He is now working on a project aiming to use Polarization Sensitive OCT at the tip of a cardiac catheter to assist clinicians in treating and visualizing atrial fibrillation.

Bosco Bakwatanisa

PhD Student

Bosco obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Makerere University, Kampala Uganda, Later, he obtained a Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Nanjing Medical University.  He is interested in building and validating Optical Coherence Tomography and optical mapping technologies that will help study electrophysiology and conduction patterns during early embryonic heart development. He also has a keen interest in deep learning and machine learning algorithms to unravel congenital heart defects.

Di Fan

PhD Student

Di graduated from Lanzhou University with a B.S in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics and Case Western Reserve University with an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering. He is currently integrating optical and mechanical approaches to investigate corneal biomechanics.

Past Lab Members

• Xiaowei Zhao, PhD
  PhD/Post-doctoral Researcher
• Shan Ling PhD
  PhD Student
• Lindsy Petersen, PhD
  PhD/Post-doctoral Researcher
• Pei Ma, PhD
  PhD Student
• Xiaoyong (Shawn) Fu, PhD
  Post-doctoral Researcher
• Siyao Yu, PhD
  Visiting Scholar
• Zhilin Hu, PhD
  Researcher
• Michael Jenkins
  PhD Student/Post-doctoral Researcher
• Zhao Wang, PhD
  PhD Student
• Hui Wang, PhD
  PhD Student/Post-doctoral Researcher
• Christine (Flemming) Hendon, PhD
  PhD Student
• Wei Kang
  PhD Student
• Matthew Ford, PhD
  PhD Student
• Pan Yinsheng, PhD
  Post-doctoral Researcher
• Brenda Nakandi, MS
  Graduate Student

Collaborators

Our lab primarily collaborates with the labs of:

• Professor Michael Jenkins, PhD
  CWRU School of Medicine, Department of Biomedical Engineering
  Jenkins Lab Website 
• Professor Michiko Watanabe, PhD
  CWRU School of Medicine, Department of Cardiology
  Watanabe Lab Website 
• Professor BJ Dupps, MD, PhD
  Cleveland Clinic, Biomedical Engineering
• Ohad Ziv, MD
  University Hospitals, Cardiology
• Christopher Snyder, MD
  University Hospitals, Cardiology
• Mauricio Arruda, MD
  University Hospitals, Cardiology
• Professor Kenneth Laurita, PhD
  MetroHealth Medical Center, Cardiology
• Professor Christine Hendon, PhD
  Columbia University, Department of Electrical Engineering