Faculty

Philip Measor
Philip Measor, Ph.D.

Dr. Philip Measor is an Associate 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.

Research Assistants

Noran Khalil
Noran Khalil

Noran is a Bioinformatics student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2025. Her research interests are in 3D printed microdevices for DNA extraction.

April Valdez
April Valdez

April is an Engineering student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2026. Her research interests are in 3D printed microdevices and systems miniaturization.

Nathan Wilson
Nathan Wilson

Nathan is a Physics student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2026. His research interests are in 3D printed optofluidic devices and integrated photonics.

Muci Sun
Muci (Jessica) Sun

Jessica is a bioinformatics student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2026. Her research interests are in 3D printed microdevices and biosensing.

Michael Barnes
Michael Barnes

Michael is an Engineering student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2026. His research interests are in 3D printed microdevices and systems miniturization.

Group Alumni

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

Enqiao (EQ) Qian / 2026 / Physics / MIT

EQ was a Physics student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2024. His research interests were in 3D printed optofluidics, 3D printed integrated waveguides, and system miniaturization. His work was been presented at Photonics West 2025 and 2026. After Whitworth, EQ continued on for a PhD in Electrical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in quantum computing and photonics.

Dominic Gusman / 2026 / Engineering and CS / Avista Utilities

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.

Jenna Bunescu / 2025 / CS

Jenna was a CS student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2025. Her research interests were in 3D printed microdevices, fluorimetry and systems miniaturization. Jenna decided to transition to a CS focus.

Mitchell Schoenbacher / 2026 / Applied Math / Pyrotech

Mitchell was an Applied Math student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2025. His research interests were in 3D printed microdevices, image processing and systems automation.

Lauren Podhajsky / 2026 / CS & Math

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

Kristi Shaka / 2025 / Biochemistry / University of Washington

Kristi was 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 in 3D printed microfluidic devices and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) biosensing devices. His work has been presented at SPIE Photonics West 2023, was featured in the news and became the primary technology of the first spin-off company from Whitworth University. Kristi continued on to graduate studies in the school of medicine at the University of Washington.

Alex Peters / 2025 / Biophysics

Alex was a Biophysics student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2024. His research interests were in 3D printed microdevices for microorganism analysis and sorting. His work has been presented at Photonics West 2025. After Whitworth, he took some time off studies to fight forest fires in the Pacific Northwest.

Erik Christiansen / 2025 / Engineering / CRETEX Medical

Erik was an Engineering student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2023. His research interests were in 3D printed microdevices for medical applications. After Whitworth, he joined, as a Quality Engineer, CRETEX Medical that provide manufacturing and engineering services for therapeutics and other medical systems.

Joshua Demant / 2025 / Engineering / University of Washington

Joshua was an Engineering student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2023. His research interests were in optical characterization of materials. This included thin film measurements with an ellipsometer and corresponding analysis in a cleanroom environment. After Whitworth, he continued on for a masters in the Aeronautics and Astronautics department at the University of Washington

Jacob Blomdahl / 2025 / Engineering / Electroimpact Inc.

Jacob was an Engineering student and joined the Microdevices Lab in 2023. His research interests were in 3D printed microdevices and developing systems for microparticle and microorganism sorting and analysis. His work was presented at SPIE Photonics West 2024. Following Whitworth, Jacob went into industry as a mechanical engineer at Electroimpact Inc. to make machinery for aerospace.

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 University 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 transferred 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.