Arizona Governor’s Celebration of Innovation Awards winners for 2014 include a faculty member and an undergraduate student in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University.
David Frakes received the Innovator of the Year Award in the Academia category for engineering research and technology development he has led in recent years through his Image Processing Applications Lab at ASU. Frakes is an associate professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering and the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering.
The award recognizes the achievement of his lab team in developing a cloud-based computer simulation platform enabling precise modeling of the conditions of patients with brain aneurysms.
The technology aids physicians in developing patient-specific plans for endovascular treatments. It is expected to have a significant impact on the success of insertions of neurovascular stents to improve patients’ recovery.
Sarah Galvin, a freshman electrical engineering student, was presented one of four Future Innovators of the Year awards. Galvin was recognized for a research project she developed as a student at Corona del Sol High School in Tempe.
The research involves experimentation with using combinations of various materials to make devices that could help pave the way for the next generation of electronics.
Earlier this year, the project earned her a first-place prize in the electrical and mechanical engineering category in the Intel International Science and Technology Fair for high school students. Galvin is continuing the research at ASU.
The Governor’s Celebration of Innovation Awards program is organized by the Arizona Technology Council in partnership with the Arizona Commerce Authority. In addition to the state award, Frakes’ biomedical engineering projects also recently earned him a World Technology Award in the Health and Medicine category.
Winners are chosen by peers in their fields, who select scientists, engineers and inventors they consider to be making advances that will have “the greatest likely long-term significance.”
Frakes’ selection for one of the awards was also based on the endovascular modeling techniques. A startup company, Endovantage, has emerged from the advances in those techniques.
That modeling technology development is related to other biomedical projects that are bringing attention to Frakes’ lab team. Among them is the 3-D Cardiac Print Lab at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, which is being run under Frakes’ guidance by ASU biomedical engineering doctoral student Justin Ryan.
The lab produces 3-D prints of individual patients’ cardiovascular, respiratory and skeletal structures. The lab also provides physicians a novel virtual screening of the conditions of pediatric patients, helping surgeons ensure the fit of artificial hearts implanted into the patients.
via Technology advances earn state innovation awards | ASU News.
