Faculty

Philip Measor
Philip Measor, Ph.D.

Dr. Philip Measor is an Assistant Professor in the Engineering & Physics Department that founded and leads the Microdevices Lab at Whitworth University.

Kent Jones
Kent Jones, Ph.D.

Dr. Kent Jones is a Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Whitworth University and focuses on the interface of microdevices, bioinformatics and computation.

Graduate Researchers

Kristi Shaka
Kristi Shaka

Kristi is a graduate student in the MBA program and graduated with a bachelors in biochemistry from Whitworth University. He joined the Microdevices Lab in 2022 where he focused on research interests in 3D printed microfluidic devices and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) biosensing devices. His work has been presented at SPIE Photonics West 2023 and was featured in the news.

Research Assistants

Dominic Gusman
Dominic Gusman

Dominic is a General Engineering student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2022. His research interests are in 3D printed integrated waveguides. His work was presented at SPIE Photonics West 2023.

Jacob Blomdahl
Jacob Blomdahl

Jacob is an Engineering student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2023. His research interests are in 3D printed microdevices and systems for particle sorting and microorganism analysis. His work was presented at SPIE Photonics West 2024.

Joshua Demant
Joshua Demant

Joshua is an Engineering student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2023. His research interests are in optical characterization of materials. This includes thin film measurements with an ellipsometer and corresponding analysis.

Erik Christiansen
Erik Christiansen

Erik is an Engineering student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2023. His research interests are in 3D printed microdevices.

Alex Peters
Alex Peters

Alex is a Biophysics student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2024. His research interests are in 3D printed microdevices for organism analysis.

Lauren Podhajsky
Lauren Podhajsky

Lauren is a Computer Science student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2024. Her research interests are in image processing and systems automation.

Eq Qian
Eq Qian

Eq is an Engineering student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2024. His research interests are in 3D printed microdevices and biomolecular detection.

Group Alumni

Name / Grad. Year / Major / Employer or School after the group

Virginia Oellrich / 2024 / Biology / University of Washington

Virginia was a Biology student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2021. Her research interests were in biological sensors. Following Whitworth, Virginia continued her studies to become a medical doctor at the Univeristy of Washington

Moab Croft / 2023 / Physics / University of Bucharest

Moab was a Physics student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2022. His research interests were in alternate computational methods using microdevices with FRET molecular detection. His work was presented at Frontiers in Optics 2023. Following Whitworth, he continued in a graduate program in the Theoretical and Computational Physics Department at the University of Bucharest focused on theoretical physics.

Helio Ramollari / 2023 / Engineering / Univ. California Santa Cruz

Helio was an Engineering student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2021. His research interests were in 3D printed integrated waveguides and biosensing. His work was presented at SPIE Photonics West 2022 and 2023. Following Whitworth, he joined the Applied Optics Group at the University of California Santa Cruz as a PhD student in electrical engineering focused on integrated devices and optofluidics.

McKenzie Garcia / 2023 / Biophysics / Univ. Texas Dallas

McKenzie was a Biophysics student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2022. Her research interests were in 3D printed microfluidic devices for analysis of micro-organisms, including C. Elegans. This work was presented at the 24th International C. elegans Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Following Whitworth, McKenzie continued on for her PhD in biomedical engineering at the University of Texas Dallas.

Trevor Thomas / 2023 / Applied Physics & Math / Univ. Conn.

Trevor was an Applied Physics and Math student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2022. His research interests in the group were in material characterization and metrology including the use of ellipsometers, refractometers and scanning electron microscopes. Following Whitworth, Trevor continued on in an electrical engineering PhD program at the University of Connecticut focused on quantum computing.

Taylor Burchard / 2022 / Biology / Xerox PARC

Taylor was a Biology student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2020. Her research interests were in microfluidics and biosensing. Her work involved microfluidic device fabrication and on-chip analysis of Caenorhabditis elegans. This work was presented at SPIE Photonics West 2022. Following Whitworth, Taylor joined Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).

Ryan Grady / 2022 / General Engineering / Lockheed Martin

Ryan was an Engineering student that graduated in 2022. He joined the Microdevices Lab in 2019 and worked on numerous projects. His worked initially focused on programming microcontrollers to interface with instruments then morphed into UV-VIS materials research on 3D printing resins. Ryan also worked on optical system alignment to ensure 3D printing repeatability on the scale of tens of microns. Finally, his work transitioned into novel microdevices. Following Whitworth, Ryan entered industry at Lockheed Martin as a Systems Engineer.

Stephanie McCallum / 2022 / Math & Applied Physics / Micron

Stephanie was a Math and Applied Physics student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2020. Her research interests were in particle tracking and image processing. Following Whitworth, Stephanie joined Micron as a Surface Scientist.

Brendan Clark / 2022 / Applied Physics / Wash. Univ.

Brendan was a Bioengineering student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2020. His research interests were in image processing, particle tracking and blob detection algorithm development. Brendan transfered to Washington University in St. Louis for a dual degree in applied physics and bioengineering.

Calvin Payne / 2021 / Physics / Seabird Scientific

Calvin was a Physics student that joined the Microdevices Lab in 2020. His work focused on applied optics. Following Whitworth, Calvin entered industry at Seabird Scientific.

Maia Ketteridge / 2021 / Biophysics / Boise State Univ.

Maia was a Biophysics student that joined the Microdevices Lab in 2020 and graduated in 2021. Her work focused on researching potential biosensor microdevices. She continued on for a PhD in Material Science at Boise State University with an emphasis in nanoscale computational modelling.

Chris Roberts / 2021 / Appl. Physics & C.S. / PACCAR Inc.

Chris was an Applied Physics and Computer Science student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2019. His work involved automating optical setups and programming light sources. Following Whitworth, Chris entered industry, at PACCAR Inc., as a Software Development Engineer.

Cannon Coats / 2021 / Physics / Texas A&M University

Cannon was a Physics student that graduated in 2021. He joined the Microdevices Lab in 2019 and his work involved design and fabrication of 3D printed parts. Following Whitworth, Cannon entered a Ph.D. program in Physics at Texas A&M University with an emphasis in radiation.

Mateo Reynoso Roman / 2020 / Physics / Georgia Tech.

Mateo was a Physics student and graduated in 2020. He continued on to a Ph.D. program at Georgia Institute of Technology with an emphasis in nonlinear physics including chaos theory. Mateo joined the Microdevices Lab in 2018. His research interests were in optics including refractive index characterization and image processing. He used a Pulfrich refractometer to characterize the index of different materials. He also used a Fourier filtering image processing method to extract microscale dimensions from images.

Samartha Shrestha / 2020 / Biology / University of Washington

Samartha was a Biology (Pre-Med) student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2019. His research interests were in developing new materials for fabricating microdevices. This included UV-VIS spectroscopy and materials research. He has continued on to the University of Washington to become a medical doctor.

William Engelhardt / 2020 / Biomedical Engineering / Wash. Univ.

William was a 3/2 Biomedical Engineering student and transitioned to Washington University in St. Louis to focus on Biomedical Engineering. He joined the Microdevices Lab in 2020 and focused on optical simulations.

Ishan Gauli / 2020 / Applied Physics / Wash. Univ.

Ishan was a 3/2 Applied Physics student and graduated in 2020. He joined the Microdevices Lab in 2018 and his work entailed building a Pulfrich refractometer to measure the refractive index of different materials. He achieved index measurements accurate to within Δn = 0.001 or within a 0.054% index change. He transferred to Washington University in St. Louis to focus on Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics with an emphasis in Optics. Ishan continued on at Washington University in St. Louis for a graduate degree in Electrical Engineering focusing on control systems.