Hannah Feldstein

Hannah is a PhD student in mechanical engineering whose research is centered on the fundamental design, optimization, and device integration of dynamically reconfigurable micro-scale fluid droplet morphologies for biomedical sensing and imaging. Being able to determine whether bacteria are alive or dead has important implications for rapid detection of pathogenic bacteria presence and the quantification of antibiotic effectiveness. This can be accomplished through sensing optical changes.Hannah is advancing sensing concepts that are based on employing micro-scale, bi-phase emulsion droplets for the optical quantification of bacteria motion to readily distinguish between live and dead bacteria. MATLAB is critical for in-situ assessment of the droplets’ optical characteristics and for computational deduction of the underlying bacteria dynamics. If successful, her approach, which involves efficient data capture and analysis enabled by MATLAB, will address drawbacks in sensitivity, delay times, and cost of bacterial culture and polymerase chain reaction approaches, given that her detection strategy is rapid and the required fluid morphologies are relatively inexpensive to fabricate. Hannah earned a BS in mechanical engineering from Schreyer Honors College at Pennsylvania State University.