Bios of RoboMed Judges
2020 Robofest Online World Championship
Sep 12, 2020 8am-11am
(Updated Sep 9. Listed by Last Name)
Dr. Therese Bou-Akl is currently the manager of the orthopaedic Research Lab at Ascension Providence Hospital, Southfield campus. She is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Wayne State University and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Lawrence technological University. She received an MD degree from Bulgaria in 1988 and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Wayne State University in 2006. She completed her postdoctoral studies on cardiovascular Tissue Engineering at the children's Hospital of Michigan and on bone TE at Wayne State University. Her research focuses on biomaterial characterization and cell- biomaterial interaction both in vitro and in vivo. Dr. Bou-Akl is involved in teaching graduate and undergraduate level biomedical engineering classes, and she is committed to student success and achieve this by engaging students in basic research, presenting and publishing high quality research work.
Mr. David A. Carbery P.E. has been involved with Robofest since 2012 as a coach and judge in multiple competitions. He has recently taught a Bottle Sumo program at Bates Academy in Detroit. In 2018 he went to represent LTU at the Robofest competition in Mexico. David had previously worked with FIRST Robotics team 472. He has been working for FANUC America Corporation for 30 years. David has held positions in software and hardware design. He is currently a Product Development Staff Engineer. Responsibilities at FANUC include Hazardous Location approvals and electrostatics. David has recently signed a patent application for a new robot design. David earned a B.S. from LTU in Electrical Engineering. The degree requirement to take the F.E. exam set him up to earn an engineering license. David is scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 248 and is also a Merit Badge Counselor for: Engineering, Electronics, Electricity, Robotics, and Game Design. His daughter Jennifer participated in Robofest and volunteers periodically. (Code Inspector)
Dr. Hao Jiang is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Lawrence Technological University. He received his B.S. degree in Electronics from Peking University (Beijing, China) in 2005, and the M.E.Sc. and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Western University (London, Ontario, Canada) in 2007 and 2011, respectively. During year 2012-2013, he has worked as a MITACS postdoctorate research fellow at University of Victoria (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) where he studied non-linear effects and optical trapping of biomolecules using optical antenna. During year 2013 - 2019, he has worked as a postdoctorate research fellow at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada). He has invented and patented a portfolio of technologies on structural color image display devices based on nano-optical metasurfaces. These works have been published in high-impact journals and highlighted in news stories. Dr. Jiang's research interests include biomedical sensors, nanotechnology, optics, electronics, computational electromagnetics, medical devices.
Dr. Aleksandra Kuzmanov joined LTU in the fall of 2017. She teaches Biology 1 and Cell Biology courses in the department of Natural Sciences. She earned an MD degree at the University of Belgrade School of Medicine (Serbia) in 2004. After practicing medicine for three years, Dr. Kuzmanov came to the US to study nutrition, and molecular and cellular biology. She received a master's degree in Human Nutrition in 2009 and a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Life Sciences in 2014 from the University of Wyoming. Following her graduate studies, she spent three year as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Davis before moving to LTU. Her research focuses on understanding the mechanisms that promote proper chromosome segregation during male meiosis using the model organism C. elegans. Chromosome segregation errors have an astounding impact on human reproductive health as a primary cause of infertility, recurrent miscarriage and developmental disabilities.
Dr. Yawen Li is Associate Professor and Chair of the Biomedical Engineering Department at Lawrence Technological University (LTU). She received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Xi'an Jiaotong University, and Ph.D. degree from MIT, all in Materials Science and Engineering. She completed a postdoc fellowship in the Center for Engineering in Medicine affiliated with Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital before joining LTU. She has been involved with youth robotics since 2016, coaching First Lego League and First Tech Challenge teams, and volunteering in Robofest and First Tech Challenge competitions.