People

Sam Asgari | Research Associate in Surgery

Sam earned his masters in biomedical engineering with a focus on electronics implants from University of Bern in Switzerland. He has since undertaken many cardiovascular engineering projects, including those focused on LVAD controller and driver designs, hemodynamics, LVAD pulsatile algorithms, and wireless powering of implantable devices such as LVADs. His current research interests are mechanical circulatory support, hemodynamics, sensors and catheters design, RF communication, and wireless energy transfer.

Vladimir Shumaster| Research Resident

Dr. Shumaster graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a bachelor’s degree in Biology and a minor in Chemistry. He then attended St. Matthew’s University School of Medicine.  After graduating medical school, Dr. Shumaster did part of his surgical training at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City after which he joined the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Yale University School of Medicine. Currently his work includes looking at outcomes of lung transplantation in patients that were placed on mechanical life support such as ECMO. He regularly assists in harvesting hearts for heart transplantation. He is also involved in design and testing of wireless energy transfer technology for implantable devices, like LVADs, and conducting animal experiments to test this system. His research interests include heart and lung transplantation as well as both respiratory and cardiovascular mechanical support. Future projects he is planning to work on include the development of artificial lungs.

Matthew Brennan | Research Resident

Dr. Brennan is a cardiothoracic research resident at Yale-New Haven Hospital and Yale University School of Medicine. Originally from Long Island, NY, he earned his bachelors degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his MD from Ross University School of Medicine. He performed his surgical training at the University of Miami / Jackson Memorial Medical Center, then joined the Department of Surgery at Yale University where he pioneered and performed a transitional study demonstrating the success of implantable tissue engineered vascular grafts. This technology is currently being used to repair congenital vascular defects in children. His current research focus is the optimization of donor heart selection. This will allow us to stratify and conserve the valuable resource of donated hearts. 

Tohid Pirbodaghi | Postdoctoral Associate in Surgery 

Tohid received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in Iran. In 2013, he received his PhD degree in Biomedical Engineering from Bern University in Switzerland. Tohid conducted research in Cardiovascular Engineering Lab (ARTORG Center) and developed a novel control algorithm for rotary blood pumps to stimulate cardiac recovery in heart failure patients. He is currently a postdoctoral associate at Bonde Artificial Heart Lab, the University of Yale. His current research interests include design and development of totally implantable blood pumps and computational fluid dynamics.

Qingwei Chen | Assistant Professor

Dr. Chen is a Cardiovascular Surgeon from Jinan, China. He graduated from Shandong Medical University. He works with Dr. Bonde on animal experiments and the LVAD patient outcome analysis. His interest lies on LVADs, and innovative cardiac procedures.

Brian Letzen | Medical Student Research Assistant 

Brian is a third-year Yale medical student in the Bonde Lab. His current research focus is on developing a wirelessly-powered untethered intra-aortic pump that can be delivered via catheter. He graduated from University of Florida with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 2008 and from Johns Hopkins University with a master's degree in biomedical engineering in 2010. In the past, he has worked in engineering at GE Healthcare and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He is originally from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Aditi Balakrishna | Medical Student Research Assistant 

Aditi is a rising second-year Yale medical student in the Bonde lab. She is working on heart transplant outcomes research as well as on the FREE-D Wireless Energy Transfer project. She graduated from Harvard with a bachelor’s degree in neurobiology in 2010. She is from Memphis, Tennessee.

Oliver Jawitz | Medical Student Research Assistant 

Oliver is a rising second-year Yale medical student in the Bonde lab. In addition to assisting with the FREE-D LVAD system development, Oliver is performing outcomes based research on heart transplantation. He graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2010, where he majored in Chinese and minored in Biology. Oliver is from Great Neck, New York but grew up in Hong Kong.

Eric Lee | Medical Student Research Assistant 

Christopher Sauer| Medical Student Research Assistant 

Chris is pursuing an MD/MBA joint degree at Yale. He is expecting to graduate in 2014 and pursue a career in cardiac surgery. His current research focus is on ECMO, specifically the national trends in outcomes and cost. He graduated from Columbia University in 2008 with a bachelor's degree in Biology. He is originally from Saddle River, NJ.

Jake is a rising second-year Yale medical student in the Bonde lab. He is conducting research on the outcomes and cost-effectiveness of left ventricular assist devices. He graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor's degree in molecular biology in 2012. Jake grew up in Wayland, Massachusetts. 

Elsa Cuprak | Pre-medical Research Assistance

Elsa is a statistician for the Cardiology/Heart Failure and Transplant Department at Yale University Hospital. She is an expert in statistics as well as SAS and Excel. She uses her in-depth knowledge to supporting clinical research at the Bonde lab. Elsa has masters in Actuary Science from the University of Iowa and bachelors in statistics from the University of California Berkley. She worked for several years as an actuary at both Met Life and the West Coast Life Insurance Company.

Usman Anwer | Engineering Student Researcher 

Usman is a mechanical designer and software developer interested in how overlap of mobile and automation technologies can disrupt education, logistics, healthcare, and lifestyle. At Yale, Usman contributed to several projects at the Yale Grasping, Manipulation, Rehabilitation Robotics and Biorobotics Lab and served on the Committees on the Yale College Course of Study, Science, and Quantitative Reasoning. He enjoys improvised travel plans, walking around campus, and random philosophical debates.

Kristi Oki| Engineering Student Researcher 

Kristi is a Yale undergraduate majoring in mechanical engineering. She enjoys sharing her love of Yale and engineering with prospective students as an Engineering Tour Guide for the Yale Admissions Office. She is also involved with Splash at Yale, a program which brings middle and high school students to Yale to take classes taught by undergraduates. Kristi has spent the past two summers abroad in Japan, and she loves studying the Japanese language and culture. Her other interests include pottery, letterpress printing, and scientific glassblowing.

Martin Shapiro| Engineering Student Researcher 

Martin is a pre-med mechanical engineering major at Yale with aspirations to explore the intersection of global health and social entrepreneurship.  At Yale, He leads the Yale Men’s Volleyball team as captain, directs the Club Sports Advisory Board, plays flute in the Davenport Pops Orchestra, organizes concerts at health care venues in the greater New Haven area, and programs for a Infor-Med Medical Information Systems.  Having been infected with a serious strain from the travel bug at a young age with symptoms of 20+ country passport stamps, Martin enjoys exploring new cultures and has spread this passion by creating opportunities for Yalies and international students to intern abroad through his tenure at AIESEC, the world’s largest student-run organization.

Katie Katilius| Intern 

Katie is a rising junior at Allegheny College with a Global Health major and a Biology minor. She is Pre-Health focused and is a certified Health Coach as well as a Research Associate at St. Vincent Medical Center. Katie enjoys volunteering for various organizations including The Meadville Medical Center as well as multiple human rights agencies focusing on women’s services and intellectual & developmental disabilities. She is originally from Pittsburgh, PA.

Akshay Raghu | Undergraduate 4

Akshay is a summer intern working on the Free-D Wireless Energy Transfer project by programming the MSP430 microcontrollers to be used in the system. He is a rising senior undergraduate Biomedical Engineering student at Case Western Reserve University and lives in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.