(4fq) Functional Bio-Interfacing Materials for Translational Biomedical Devices

Providing quality healthcare at affordable cost is a challenge today on a global scale, shifting the attention toward the paradigm of Preventive, Personalized, and Precision Medicine. This requires seamless access to point-of-care (POC) devices with the support of smart bio-interfaced materials infrastructure for patients and healthcare providers at homes, and semi or pre-clinical facilities. An emerging material is transient materials that can degrade continuously over time in the body (Bio-resorbable) or in the environment (Eco-resorbable), which have revolutionized the new soft bioelectronics toward sustainable future. This essentially involves a broad scope of research towards material science and engineering of novel medical devices for translational medicine. These devices can be at the skin- interface (wearable) or at the biological tissues and cells interface (implantable). The main emphasis will be enabling the next generation of medical technologies to be intelligent, and more convenient for patients. My research will center around translational research of functional biomaterials for advanced wearable and implantable bioelectronic devices into medical and sustainable practices, and tissue engineering.

As a faculty, my research will focus on two main themes:

1. Smart biomaterials and epidermal devices for wearable health monitoring
2. Engineered functional bioresorbable materials for implantable monitoring and therapeutic devices, and tissue regenerations

Selected Publications: (* denotes Corresponding Author)

1. Cho, S. Shaban, R. Song, H. Zhang, D. Yang, M. Kim, Y. Xiong, X. Li, K. Madsen, S. Wapnick, S. Zhang, Z. Chen, J. Kim, G. Guinto, S. Shajari, M. Li, M. Lee, R. Nuxoll, J. Wang, S. Son, J. Shin, A. J. Aranyosi, D. E. Wright, T. i. Kim, R. Ghaffari, Y. Huang, D. Kim, and J. A. Rogers, “A Microfluidic Band with Capabilities in Colorimetric Temporal Monitoring of Personal Fitness Through Quantitative Sweat Analytics”. (2024) Science Translational Medicine, (Submitted)

2. Shajari¹, S. Cho¹, R. Song, J. Park, X. Lee Muller, M. Lee, Z. Chen, K. Maddsen, J. Kim, G. Guinto, and J. A. Rogers, “Wearable Lateral Flow Assay and Gold Nanoflowers for Multiplex Sensing of Cardiac Rhythm Biomarkers in Sweat: Depressive and Sleep Disorders” (2024) (In Submission) [1: Equal Contribution]

3. Shajari, R. Salahandish, A. Zare, M. Hassani, S. Moossavi, E. Munro, R. Rashid, D. Rosenegger, j. S. Bains, and A. Sanati Nezhad, “MicroSweat: A Wearable Microfluidic Patch for Noninvasive and Reliable Sweat Collection Enables Human Stress Monitoring”, Advanced Science, (2023),10,7, 2204171.

4. Shajari*, S. Ramakrishnan, K. Karan, L. J. Sudak, and U. Sundararaj, “Ultrasensitive Wearable Sensor with Novel Hybrid Structures of Silver Nanowires and Carbon Nanotubes in Fluoroelastomer: Multi-Directional Sensing for Human Health Monitoring and Stretchable Electronics”, Applied Materials Today, (2022) 26, 101295.

Teaching Experience & Interests

I think of student-centered approaches as a way of advancing science in sustainable ways. My pedagogical approaches and methods are aimed at building students' confidence, facilitating learning through involvement, and instilling motivation. I am committed to developing every student's technical, professional, academic, and life skills. I believe that the most effective teaching environment is an active learning one, where every individual is interactively involved and focused on real-world problems, which enables and promotes critical thinking and problem-solving attitude. Most importantly, in this approach, students enjoy the class and have the chance to learn new concepts while having fun. In addition, I would employ reflective practice in teaching where students can provide real-time feedback to me in order for me to adjust my teaching strategies to better accommodate their needs. I intend to incorporate teaching concepts that aim to approach a problem from different aspects of engineering and science so that students would learn to integrate different skill sets they obtain.

I had the unique opportunity to serve as a teaching assistant, mentor, as well as lecturer in different types of courses, including general/core engineering courses, laboratory, capstone projects, and engineering design projects, provided a unique chance for me to obtain various invaluable skillsets that I could surely employ them for effectively instructing a variety of courses. During the past years as an MSc, PhD, and PDF fellow, I have had the opportunity to advise and mentor 16 researchers at different levels on their research and teaching activities and the unique opportunity to supervise two students for their bachelor thesis, all of which provided constructive and positive feedback. As I always believe in nurturing my skills using trainings and professional development, during my PhD, I enrolled in the “Effective Engineering Teaching Workshop” offered by internationally recognized instructors including Dr. Brent, president of Education Designs Inc., Dr. Felder, Professor Emeritus of North Carolina State University and Dr. Sundararaj, Professor of UCalgary, the recipient of the 3M National Teaching Fellowship. This workshop was very rewarding for developing important sets of skills from highly skilled leaders in educational teaching with over a century of experience, who provided me with different perspectives to teaching that I will integrate and effectively use them in my teaching career. In addition, during my postdoc, I received a Postdoctoral Scholar Certificate in University Teaching and Learning certificate along with different teaching badge completion recognition in Theories and Practices of teaching, Learning Spaces and Digital Pedagogies, Emerging Teachers Development, EDI Badges in teaching, all through an eight-month training course offered by the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, UCalgary. Taking this comprehensive course further strengthened my teaching skills as well as shaped a more integrative perspective to teaching for me beyond the academic envelope, as the curriculum combined teaching techniques with consideration of leadership, supervision, mentorship, equity, diversity, and inclusion.