GBO Committees

Research Areas

• BioMEMS
• BioMechanics
• Cardiovascular
• Cell and Tissue Engineering
• Computational Biology and Neuroscience
• Imaging
• Neuroengineering
• The First Edition of the GBO List, courtesy of R. Jacob Vogelstein

GBO Requirements

• Requirements, as determined by the Hopkins GBO Committee:
  • According to this memo from the GBO Board, at least THREE WEEKS BEFORE your GBO exam date, you need to turn in the BME2007_GBO_FORM (.pdf) (Also available on the Download page)
  • 1) The faculty members eligible to sit on a Graduate Board Exam are strictly limited, generally to full-time faculty at the level of Assistant Professor and above in degree-granting departments; it is difficult to obtain permission for a member of a clinical department or a faculty member from the part-time (evening college) programs;
  • 2) At least two of the examiners must be from outside the student's program; for BME, inside examiners are any member of the BME Department or the BME Committee.
  • 3) There must be at least one associate or full professor on the committee.
  • PhD Handbook: GBO Requirements
• Summary of Requirements:
  • Committee Members: two professors from within the Biomedical Engineering Department and three from outside the BME Dept
  • Committee Chairman: will be the highest-ranking (Associate Professor or Professor) outside faculty member on the committee that is not your research advisor
  • Content: must include some engineering, some math, and some biology
  • Paperwork: at least THREE WEEKS BEFORE the GBO, you need to download the GBO form and turn it into Hong Lan, our course administrator; she'll turn it into the Hopkins GBO Committee, and hopefully they'll approve your committee. If they don't approve it, then you need to revise your committee members according to their requirements.
• Link to Previous GBO Committees:
  • Academic Committees
  • The Current List of GBO Info (initiated in Fall 2007)
  • The First Edition of the GBO List (compiled by Jacob Vogelstein and dating back to a loooong time ago)
• Helpful Tips:
  • Take at least a month off from lab and study.
  • Schedule a "Mock GBO" a week or more before your "real" GBO. Look through the lists for students who've had the same professors on their committees. Ask them to act like the professors and drill you with questions. (This REALLY helps.)
  • Arrange for coffee and/or refreshments for your committee members. That way, no one will be grouchy or hungry while testing you. If you're doing your GBO in Talbot Library on the JHMI campus, you can schedule a catering-ish event w/ the Daily Grind (located in Broadway Research Building).

BioMEMS

• Council Members: Jeff Wang; Markus Hilpert; Mandy Ward; Ludwig Brand; Sean Sun
• Research Areas / Questions: single molecule detection bioMEMS; confocal spectroscopy

BioMechanics

• Council Members: Robert Allen (BME); Edith Gurewitsch (Ob/Gyn); Steve Belkoff (Mech E); Jerry Prince (ECE); Artin Shoukas (BME)
• Alternates: Nitish Thakor, John Goutsias
• Research Areas / Questions: Uterine forces (my research); Study design/Basic Epidemiology; In-depth questions about my research; Medical imaging systems - Chemistry behind X-rays, CT theorems; How the body adapts to hemorrhage

Cardiovascular

• Council Members: Lawrence Schramm; Art Shoukas; Markus Hilpert; Jon Lorsch; Tim Weihs
• Research Areas / Questions: cardiovascular systems; autonomic nervous system; partial differential equations; wave equation; first section of molecules and cells; structural properties of materials

• Council Members: Les Tung; Andreas Andreou; David Yue; Mark Shelhammer; Ron Berger
• Research Areas / Questions: cardiac electrophysiology; semiconductor devices; calcium channels; nonlinear dynamics; cardiology

Cell and Tissue Engineering

• Council Members: David Yue; Nick Marsh-Armstrong; Eric Young; Markus Hilpert; Dr. Neiman
• Research Areas / Questions: calcium channels; neuroscience (developmental); ion channel models; PDEs; probability and statistics

• Council Members: Lawrence Schramm; Henry Colecraft; Amy Bastian; Dan Berkowitz; John Wierman
• Alternates: Eric Young; Jay Baraban
• Research Areas / Questions: spinal cord pathways and research; calcium signals and ionic channels; CPGs and cerebellar circuits; cardio and smooth mm; probability and statistics

• Advisor: John McDonald in the International Spinal Cord Institute and Lawrence Schramm in Biomedical Engineering
• Council Members: Lawrence Schramm; Henry Colecraft; John Wierman, Rejji Kuruvilla, Emanuel Horowitz
• Alternates: Martin Oudega, Andres Andreou
• Research Areas / Questions: spinal cord pathways and research methods; calcium concentrations, channels, and synapses; lack of memory and geometric series; tyrosine receptor kinases and signalling; biocompatibility, methods of failure

Computational Biology

• Council Members: Mike Beer; Andre Levchenko; Wilson Rugh; Shih-Ping Han; Paul Maiste
• Research Areas / Questions: k-means clustering; optimization; KKT conditions; linear vs. nonlinear system stability

• Council Members: Jim Fill, Paul Fuchs, Howard Weinert, David Yue, Kechen Zhang Alternates: Donniell Fishkind, Eric Young
• Research Areas/Questions: Markov models and definitions, structure and function of the cochlea, DTFT and DFT, synaptic plasticity (Hebb's rule, etc.) and single-channel recordings, Hopfield networks

Imaging

• Council Members: Justin Hanes; Chuck Drake; Kevin Yarema; Kostas Konstantopolous; Mark Teaford
• Research Areas / Questions: drug delivery; immunology; sugar stuff; receptor ligand biophysics; anatomy

• Advisor: Jerry Prince (ECE/BME)
• Council Members: Susumu Mori (Radiology/BME); Sarah Ying (Neurology); Larry Schramm (BME); Carey Priebe (Applied Math); Jerry Prince (ECE/BME)
• Research Areas / Questions: MRI (why is MRI noisy) and Fourier transforms (graphical Fourier transforms); Neurodegeneration and MR imaging thereof (what is it, how do we image it, what are we imaging); Neuroscience/systems anatomy (focus on the motor system); Statistics: Neyman Pearson, generalized maximum likelihood, nonparametric Monte Carlo, etc.; Anything in my or Dr. Prince's background.

• Council Members: Peter van Zijl; Lawrence Schramm; Susumu Mori; Amy Bastian; Brian Caffo
• Alternates: Henry Colecraft; Stewart Hendry
• Research Areas / Questions: basics of MRI signal generation; spinal cord tracts and cross-sectional anatomy; diffusion coefficients, Fourier transforms, diagramming a cell; central pattern generators and reflexes; biostatistics, hypothesis testing, gambling odds and probability

• Council Members: Susumu Mori; Nitish Thakor; Brian Caffo; Edward Hedgecock; Peter van Zijl
• Alternates: Paul Fuchs; Dwight Bergles
• Research Areas / Questions: Fourier transform theory and properties; EEG instrumentation and issues when combined with fMRI (instrumentation, electrodes, noise, patient safety); TILT pulse sequence, ROC curve, sensitivity, specificity, hypothesis testing; anatomy and physiology of a neuron, thalamic relay neurons, visual pathway from eye to V1, structure of a retina (layers), basal ganglia pathways (direct and indirect), where currents and voltages in the brain come from; MRI physics, structure of a pulse sequence; synaptic transmission; neurotransmitters

Neuroengineering

• Council Members: Lawrence Schramm; Henry Colecraft; Amy Bastian; Dan Berkowitz; John Wierman
• Alternates: Eric Young; Jay Baraban
• Research Areas / Questions: spinal cord pathways and research; calcium signals and ionic channels; CPGs and cerebellar circuits; cardio and smooth mm; probability and statistics

• Advisor: Jerry Prince (ECE/BME)
• Council Members: Susumu Mori (Radiology/BME); Sarah Ying (Neurology); Larry Schramm (BME); Carey Priebe (Applied Math); Jerry Prince (ECE/BME)
• Research Areas / Questions: MRI (why is MRI noisy) and Fourier transforms (graphical Fourier transforms); Neurodegeneration and MR imaging thereof (what is it, how do we image it, what are we imaging); Neuroscience/systems anatomy (focus on the motor system); Statistics: Neyman Pearson, generalized maximum likelihood, nonparametric Monte Carlo, etc.; Anything in my or Dr. Prince's background.

• Council Members: Peter van Zijl; Lawrence Schramm; Susumu Mori; Amy Bastian; Brian Caffo
• Alternates: Henry Colecraft; Stewart Hendry
• Research Areas / Questions: basics of MRI signal generation; spinal cord tracts and cross-sectional anatomy; diffusion coefficients, Fourier transforms, diagramming a cell; central pattern generators and reflexes; biostatistics, hypothesis testing, gambling odds and probability

• Council Members: Jim Fill, Paul Fuchs, Howard Weinert, David Yue, Kechen Zhang Alternates: Donniell Fishkind, Eric Young
• Research Areas / Questions: Markov models and definitions, structure and function of the cochlea, DTFT and DFT, synaptic plasticity (Hebb's rule, etc.) and single-channel recordings, Hopfield networks

• Advisor: John McDonald in the International Spinal Cord Institute and Lawrence Schramm in Biomedical Engineering
• Council Members: Lawrence Schramm; Henry Colecraft; John Wierman, Rejji Kuruvilla, Emanuel Horowitz
• Alternates: Martin Oudega, Andres Andreou
• Research Areas / Questions: spinal cord pathways and research methods; calcium concentrations, channels, and synapses; lack of memory and geometric series; tyrosine receptor kinases and signalling; biocompatibility, methods of failure

• Council Members: Susumu Mori; Nitish Thakor; Brian Caffo; Edward Hedgecock; Peter van Zijl
• Alternates: Paul Fuchs; Dwight Bergles
• Research Areas / Questions: Fourier transform theory and properties; EEG instrumentation and issues when combined with fMRI (instrumentation, electrodes, noise, patient safety); TILT pulse sequence, ROC curve, sensitivity, specificity, hypothesis testing; anatomy and physiology of a neuron, thalamic relay neurons, visual pathway from eye to V1, structure of a retina (layers), basal ganglia pathways (direct and indirect), where currents and voltages in the brain come from; MRI physics, structure of a pulse sequence; synaptic transmission; neurotransmitters

Notes

For more details, email the graduate students listed here. The PhD Council Webmaster does not claim responsibility for misspellings; however, if you spot a mistake, please send us an email.