Bioelectronics talk, Thurs 21st 3:30pm
Josh Weinstein
"Bioelectronics"
*Thursday January 21st, 3.30-4.30 PM, questions/discussion until 4.50
PM
Hugh Dempster Pavilion 110 - 6245 Agronomy Road (between Main and East
Mall)
*
*Abstract: Nature is a great analog and digital circuit designer. She
has innovated circuits in the biochemical, biomechanical, and
bioelectronic domains that operate very robustly with highly imprecise
parts and with incredibly low levels of power. I will discuss how
analog and bio-inspired circuits and architectures have led to and are
leading to novel architectures in sensing and computing, e.g., in ear-
inspired radios, architectures for improving operation in noise, ultra-
low-power signal-to-symbol conversion, and hybrid analog-digital
architectures that model computations within cells. Such techniques
can yield more than order-of magnitude power reductions while
maintaining high levels of robustness to several sources of noise. I
will provide examples from systems built in my lab for bionic ear
processors for the deaf, brain–machine interfaces for the blind and
paralyzed, and body sensor networks for patient monitoring.
Bio: Rahul Sarpeshkar obtained Bachelor’s degrees in Electrical
Engineering and Physics at MIT. After completing his PhD at Caltech,
he joined Bell Labs as a member of the technical staff. Since 1999, he
has been on the faculty of MIT’s Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science Department, where he is an Associate Professor and heads a
research group on Analog VLSI and Biological Systems. He has received
the Packard Fellow Award given to outstanding faculty, the ONR Young
Investigator Award, the NSF Career Award, the Indus Technovator Award,
and the Junior Bose Award for excellence in teaching at MIT. He holds
over 25 patents and has authored more than 100 publications, including
one that was featured on the cover of Nature. His research interests
include analog microelectronics, ultra-low-power circuits and systems,
biologically inspired circuits and systems, biomedical systems,
feedback systems, neuroscience, and molecular biology.