Bozkurt receives NSF CAREER award

Dr. Alper Bozkurt, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University, has received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his research proposal, “Bio-electro-photonic Microsystem Interfaces for Small Animals.”

The NSF CAREER award is one of the most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty members who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.

Bozkurt’s research will focus on developing a wirelessly powered injectable capsule capable of monitoring bio-potentials and bio-photonic physiological signals including heart rate, respiration rate, oxygen saturation, pulse transit time and core body temperature. The project will develop ways to overcome a major technical barrier to fusing biological organisms with synthetic electronic systems, most importantly the inefficiency of state-of-art interfaces that provide real-time information about the state of the biological organism. The proposed microsystem will open a physiological window to improve understanding of the physiology of small animals in their natural environment.

As part of the educational goals of the project, Bozkurt will engage the public at large through collaborations with local museums. He plans to employ the interdisciplinary and hands-on nature of the research to reach out to the general public and train them to use bioelectronics, biophotonics and wearable wireless physiological systems.

Bozkurt received a B.S. degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul, in 2001. He received an M.S. degree in biomedical engineering from Drexel University in 2004 and a Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Cornell University in 2010. The five-year, $500,000 grant began on February 15, 2016.