Advanced Platform Technology Center

Poster Session

The APTC Spring i-Con serves as an invaluable opportunity for trainees to network with each other and with the APTC investigators driving forward the frontiers of research and development in translational programs focused on Prosthetics & Orthotics, Health Monitoring & Maintenance, Neural Interfaces and Activity-Based Neurorehabilitation.

Keynote Address: “Time Unbound”

Presented by Ranu Jung, PhD

Life’s journey has an unbounded timeline. There are neither clear beginnings nor endings. Our individual lives are deeply intertwined with the people, places, and purposes encountered, each shaping and being shaped by these interactions. Places and people become a turning point. Focusing specifically on the pivotal experience of arriving in Cleveland and Case Western in 1983, this talk will highlight how this environment provided a foundation for my academic and career development. The connections and structure developed during this period and the purpose that got me there in the first place offered direction and inspiration, influencing the growth of my future scientific endeavors. My story aims to illustrate how personal and professional evolution is a continuous, reciprocal process, with science and purpose advancing through meaningful and collaborative relationships.

About Dr. Jung:

A visionary builder who cherishes challenges and a trailblazing figure in neural engineering, Ranu Jung arrived in Northwest Arkansas and joined the University of Arkansas in 2021 to lay the foundation for the Institute for Integrative and innovative Research (I³R) by shaping its vision and mission, creating collaborative spaces and fostering community and industry partnerships. Jung is driven by a deep sense of purpose to make a positive societal impact. From the first neuromorphic chip successfully connected to the spinal cord of a lamprey - to the first wireless, implantable, intrafascicular neural-interface system for restoring sensations to individuals with upper limb amputation, her teams have pioneered neurotechnology to bridge the gap between scientific discovery and clinical application. Jung holds a PhD and MS in Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University, a Bachelor’s with Distinction in Electronics & Communication Engineering from NIT Warangal, India, and an Honorary Doctorate from Aalborg University, Denmark.

Professional Development and Career Panel with Featured Speakers

Kiley Armstrong, MS, MPO, CPO

Kiley Armstrong, MS, MPO, CPO is a Research Prosthetist-Orthotist at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and a practicing Certified Prosthetist-Orthotist at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. Her work integrates clinical prosthetics and orthotics expertise with rehabilitation research to improve the quality, accessibility, and equity of care for people with limb loss and other mobility disabilities. Prior to her current roles, Kiley conducted several years of research at the Louis Stokes VA Medical Center's Advanced Platform Technology center, where she completed her Master's in biomedical engineering research work. Kiley's interests center on rehabilitation access, disability-informed care, gait and mobility, and translating clinical insight into impactful research.

Maria Bennett

Maria (Walker) Bennett has been the President and CEO of SPR since she founded the company in 2010. Using her years of experience in the medtech industry, Maria identified an unmet market need for a non-opioid, non-surgical pain treatment to improve the lives of millions of pain sufferers. The idea for this new treatment originated during her biomedical engineering graduate studies at Case Western Reserve University, where she developed a peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS) system to treat pain and also led R&D at an early stage neurostim company. During this experience, Maria discovered her passion for working with patients and physicians, and witnessing life-changing results. She also learned the challenges of growing and sustaining an entrepreneurial company. From there, Maria was recruited to lead a team at Boston Scientific to conduct a large clinical trial, which demonstrated the safety and efficacy of an innovative angioplasty balloon and achieved FDA approval. While it was a great experience to work for a large medtech company, when a former colleague presented the opportunity to join a new start-up company, Maria couldn’t resist and returned to Cleveland to serve as Vice President of Clinical at NDI Medical. At NDI, she played a vital role in the development of a neurostim system addressing urinary incontinence, which was acquired by Medtronic in 2008. After the sale of NDI, Maria revisited her idea of a novel pain relief therapy, validated there was an unmet market need, and founded SPR to commercialize SPRINT® PNS. She is the inventor of the SPRINT System, having multiple patents issued. Maria earned her BS degree in engineering management from Miami University (Ohio) and earned her MS degree in biomedical engineering from Case. She was awarded the East Central Region Entrepreneur of the Year from Ernst & Young in 2021.

Michael Fu, PhD

Michael Fu is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering at CWRU who teaches computer game development and user-centered design courses. His research expertise is in the integration of neurostimulation with therapeutic virtual environments to facilitate cognitive and motor learning after neural injuries such as stroke, cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, and spinal cord injury. He collaborates with transdisciplinary teams of physician scientists, neuropsychologists, therapists, game designers, and engineers, who have over 15 years of continuous federal research support from NSF (2020 CAREER Awardee), NIH (KL2 Scholar), DoD, NIDILRR, and the Dept. of Veterans Affairs.

Kristen Gelenitis, PhD

Kristen Gelenitis received her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland OH, where her research focused on implanted neural stimulation systems and their use for improving exercise outcomes following spinal cord injury. In her current role as Clinical Science Manager at ONWARD Medical, Kristen uses her engineering and research background to support the strategic design and analysis of clinical trials involving novel neurotechnologies – namely ONWARD’s ARC-EX and ARC-IM spinal cord stimulation systems. Her work involves close collaboration with thought-leaders in academic and rehabilitation settings to gather scientific input and ensure their expertise guides translation of ONWARD’s technologies.

Michael Moffitt, PhD

Michael Moffitt did his graduate work in the Applied Neural Control Lab in the BME Department at CWRU (1998 – 2004). After a brief postdoc at CCF, he joined Advanced Bionics, which had been acquired by Boston Scientific a few months prior. At Boston Scientific, Michael worked with the team to develop and introduce technology and therapy advances in spinal cord stimulation (SCS) for the treatment of chronic pain (stimulation steering algorithms, sub-perception SCS). He served as the technical lead of the team that developed and brought to the market the Vercise™ DBS system to treat movement disorders and he and his team contributed significantly to related technologies (directional leads, visual programming, anodic stimulation). He especially enjoyed taking an idea from initial concept to FDA approval and to commercialization, and hearing patients share their experiences benefiting from the technology. Dr. Moffitt served as Director of the Neuromodulation Research and Advanced Concepts (NRAC) team for the last 10 years of his 18.5 years in industry. In addition to technology development, he and his team members were often called on to support regulatory, marketing, and legal activities, and to evaluate technologies that the company was considering for acquisition or partnership. Dr. Moffitt is an inventor or co-inventor on over 200 issued US patents. In 2023, Dr. Moffitt returned to academia 100% time to develop early stage technologies with therapeutic promise, with a primary focus on photobiomodulation to treat pain, neural injury, and neurodegenerative disorders.