Principal Investigator
Sri-Rajasekhar (Raj) Kothapalli Assosciate Professor Department of Biomedical Engineering Member of Penn State Cancer Institute Department of Acoustics (by Courtesy) Pennsylvania State University Office: 325 CBE Building, State College,PA, 16802. Lab (Engineering): 329 CBE Building, State College, PA, 16802. Lab (Clinical Translation): T4883, Penn State Cancer Institute, Hershey, PA, 17033. Email: szk416@engr.psu.edu; Tel: (814)-865-0459
Brief Biography: Prof. Kothapalli is the Principal Investigator of the BioPhotonics and Ultrasound Imaging Laboratory at Penn State. He received basic education and research training in Physics and Optical Engineering, and later earned a Ph.D in Biomedical Engineering from the Washington University in Saint Louis in 2009, under the guidance of Prof. Lihong Wang. His PhD thesis focused on the development of ultrasound-modulated optical tomography (UOT). Dr. Kothpalli hypothesized and demonstrated that UOT can image optical scattering contrast at ultrasonic resolution, using theory, simulations and experiments. He further investigated different optical technologies (e.g., CCD based speckle contrast detection, Long cavity Fabry-Perot Interferometers, Four-wave mixing, and Spectral Hole Burning) to efficiently detect the ultrasound-modulated light photons. During his postdoctoral research (2009 to 2013) at Stanford University, Dr. Kothapalli designed, developed, and clinically translated a novel dual-modality Transrectal Ultrasound and Photoacoustic (TRUSPA) imaging device for human prostate cancer screening. This project was guided by Prof. Sanjiv Gambhir and Prof. Khuri-Yakub in the Departments of Radiology and Electrical Engineering, respectively. His other notable publications during this period include the first demonstration of Cerenkov luminescence endoscopy, photoacoustic molecular targeted imaging approaches using small molecules and nanoparticles, and single cell photonic nanocavities for intracellular probing. From 2014 to 2016, Dr. Kothapalli served as an instructor in the Department of Radiology, Stanford University, and conducted the first-in-human pilot clinical studies on several prostate cancer patients using the TRUSPA device he developed.
In Year 2014, Dr. Kothapalli received the K99-R00 Pathway to Independence award from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In year 2023, he received NSF CAREER award from the Electrical, Communications, and Cyber Systems (ECCS) division of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Beyond research and teaching, Dr. Kothapalli enjoys gardening, playing squash, and music.
Graduate Students
Haoyang Chen (Ph.D. student, BME) joined Dr.Kothapalli’s Lab after he received his BS and MS degrees from Drexel University in biomedical engineering (with concentration in medical devices and imaging) in 2019. Haoyang has worked in companies such as EMP Medical, Teleflex Medical, Rex Medical, and Briganti Product Development Group). He gained research experience (including two patents) in signal/image processing, medical device development for applications such as deep vein thrombosis and certain orthopaedic applications. Haoyang led his senior design team to develop an auditory assistive chemistry lab device for blind students and won the 2018 ASTM Senior Design Grant and Botstiber Senior Design Award. In Dr. Kothapalli’s lab, Haoyang’s major interests are novel ultrasound transducer fabrication and their applications for multimodal ultrasound and photoacoustic brian imaging. In his spare time, Haoyang likes playing flute, soccer and badminton. Email: haoyangchen@psu.edu Google Scholar
Shubham Mirg (Ph.D. student, BME) did their Masters from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 2019 with a major in Electrical Engineering. Their Master’s thesis work included developing fiber optic hydrophones arrays for marine application. Shubham’s current research interests include developing multimodal optical and ultrasound neuroimaging techniques and investigation of ultrasound neuromodulation for mental health disorders. In their free time, they like journaling, writing prose, drinking tea and reading. Email: smirg@psu.edu Google Scholar
Abigail Haworth (PhD student, BME) is from Wheaton, Illinois. She did her BS in Biomedical Engineering from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her PhD work is focused on the development and applications of hand-held multimodal imaging devices that integrate photoacoustic, ultrasound, Doppler, and shear wave elastography methods for improving current diagnostic and prognostic standards of cancer and vascular diseases. Email: aeh5904@psu.edu
Shubham Khandare (PhD student, BME) received B. Tech. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the College of Engineering, Pune and master’s degree from the Center for Nanoscience and Engineering (CeNSE), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. He has been working in the field of vibration and resonance. He has worked on a novel suspension system for a two-wheeler during his undergrad and bio-inspired MEMS devices during master’s degree. He developed a novel piezoelectric material growth technique for piezo-transducers and RF MEMS sensors at IISc. Currently, he is working on the fabrication of novel acoustic transducers and applications. In his leisure time, he likes to sketch. Email: smk7102@psu.edu
Mahaan Mitra (PhD student, BME) joined Prof Kothapalli’s lab in the summer of 2022 while he was a EE master’s student at PennState, and begun his PhD in the fall of 2022. He did his undergraduate studies in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology, India in 2021. Since joining the lab, he has primarily worked on different facets of developing a portable photoacoustic imager, including instrumentation, data acquisition and various image reconstruction methods. Outside of lab, he can be found listening to history podcasts while cooking North Indian food. Email: mpm7095@psu.edu
Prameth Gaddale (MS, BME)
Current UG Students (Name/Major/Year Graduating)
Ryan Biskowitz/BME/May 2023 Pietro Elliott/BME/May 2023 Helena Rudolph (Schreyer Honors Scholar)/BME/May 2023 Ankit Garikipati/Electrical Engineering/May 2023 Josiah Minotto/BME/May 2023 Kevin Creamer/BME/May 2023 Aniketh Tathachar/BME/May 2023 Katelyn Yong (Schreyer Honors Scholar)/BME/May 2024 Gaurav Kruthiventi/BME/May 2024 Connor Ryan Gaffney/BME/May 2024 Nathan Doody/BME/May 2024 Andrew Amin/BME/May 2024 Sydney Tompkins/BME/May 2024 Nicole Erwin/BME/May 2024 Srian Pedibhotla/BME/May 2025 Sparsh Kataria/BME/May 2025 Brian Johnson (Schreyer Honors Scholar)/Business and Information Systems/May 2025 Purva Gupta (Schreyer Honors Scholar)/BME/May 2025 Tianbao Xu/BME/May 2026 Pradyumna Vallabhajosyula/Computer Science/May 2026 Hibah Khan (Schreyer Honors Scholar)/Electrical Engineering/May 2026 Ananya Gollakota (Schreyer Honors Scholar)/Computer Science/May 2026 Rishika Singh/Biochemistry and Molecular Biology/May 2026
Lab Alumni
| Member | Time | Degree/Major | Current Position |
| Sumit Agrawal | 2017-2021 | PhD/BME | Multimedia Systems R&D Engineer, Qualcomm |
| Ajay Dangi | 2017-2020 | Postdoc | Hardware Engineer, Apple |
| Prof. Khaldon Lweesy | 2018 | Visiting Scholar | Professor, Jordan University of Science and Technology |
| Mohamed Osman | 2018-2022 | BS and MS/BME | Materials Engineer, Philips Ultrasound |
| Visweshwar Srinivasan | 2018-2019 | MS/EE | Product Engineer, Micron Technology |
| Deepit Abhishek Durairaj | 2018-2019 | MS/EE | |
| Gaurav Datta | 2018-2019 | MS/EE | PhD, Leeds University, United Kingdom |
| Kerrick Johnstonbaugh | 2018-2020 | BS/BME | Ph.D Computer Science, University of Alberta, Canada |
| Jinyun Liu | 2019-2021 | BS/BME | PhD Biomedical Engineering, Rice University |
| Marc Cai | 2019-2021 | BS/BME | PhD, Penn State University |
| Tarrin Goldberg | 2019-2021 | BS/BME | M.S Biomedical Engineering, Penn State |
| Tyler Shirley (Schreyer Honors Scholar) | 2017-2020 | BS/BME | Engineer, Kimberly-Clark |
| Hanna Drozynski (Schreyer Honors Scholar) | 2019-2021 | BS/BME | Masters of Prosthetics and Orthotics Student at Northwestern – Feinberg School of Medicine |
| Xianglong Bai | 2020-2022 | BS/BME | MA Statistics, Columbia University |
| Christopher Wible | 2019 | BS/BME | Electrical Engineering Co-op, Naval Nuclear Laboratory, Schenectady, New York |
| Adil Pratap Virk | 2017-2019 | BS/BME | Patent Examiner, USPTO |
| Matt Homewood | 2017-2019 | BS/BME | |
| Maryam Felemban | 2017-2019 | BS/BME | Market Analyst, Saudi Industrial |
| Neil Frings | 2018-2019 | BS/BME | Phd Student, Boston University |
| Jason Zhang | 2017-2018 | BS/BME | Automation Engineer, Zenith Technologies |
| Najiyyah Clark | BME and ME | ||
| Manuel Andres Roshardt | BS/BME | ||
| Sara Heidari Zadi | BS/BME | ||
| Michael Lauff | BS/BME | Verification and validation engineer at Bayer | |
| Jiaru Chen | BS/BME | ||
| Hussain Albahrani | BS/BME | ||
| Xinyi Yang | 2018-2019 | BS/BME |