Page 30 - CBAC Newsletter 2015

“...think as simple as possible
and as complex as necessary.”

am in my fifth and final year of my Ph.D. in Igor Efimov’s lab. I work on characterizing the electrical organization
I of atrial fibrillation to help guide the development of novel electrotherapy paradigms for the restoration of sinus
rhythm. I use a range of whole heart models from rabbit to large animal (sheep and canine). My work relies heavily
on the technique of optical mapping to visualize propagation patterns with high resolution.

Background

Growing up, my mom was an artist and my dad was in the air force. I have two very artistically talented and creative
siblings, so taking a liking to engineering was something I kind of did on my own. I wanted to be a rocket scientist
most of my childhood. I was fortunate enough to have parents that always encouraged me to go after a science
career and a grandpa who was an engineer for Bell and could offer some inspiration. In high school I became a
certified EMT and I think I was hooked on bioelectricity the first time I saw a defibrillator save someone’s life. I knew I
wanted to study biomedical engineering with a focus on instrumentation so I applied to the top programs on the East
Coast and ended up at Johns Hopkins University for undergrad.

I graduated a semester early from college because I couldn’t afford another semester of tuition and it turned out to
give me a valuable window of time to test out where I wanted my degree to take me. I worked with an R&D team at
Medtronic Vascular designing systems that mimicked the mechanical forces that grafts experience once implanted
in various locations. I loved the emphasis on design and the chance to apply my education to building something
tangible. At the end of my co-op I decided to enroll in graduate school to gain specific technical skills and gain
confidence in my own independent investigative skills. I was looking for a lab that would keep me close to
translational work and allow me to continue to focus on instrumentation development. I applied to Washington
University because it had an impressive neuro and cardiac team. I picked Igor Efimov’s lab after our first discussion
on defibrillation.

One of the best experiences I have had in graduate school is the summer that I spent working with Dr. Olivier
Bernus’s lab in Bordeaux, France. I received my own funding to travel there for the summer. I wanted to learn a new
technique after Dr. Bernus gave a talk at Wash. U. [CBAC special seminar, April 4, 2013] on the transillumination
work his lab was conducting. I went with the expectation that I would go solely to learn everything I could from his
team and I wouldn’t apply it until I came back home; instead I left with a completed study, a paper I am very proud of
*[see Recent Publications on p.26], and what I hope will be some lifelong international connections.

Learning

The objective of the heart is so simple that it can be easily overlooked. But the demands of requiring the highest
performance and indefinite reliability despite changes in environmental stress and variability between individuals
are deceivingly challenging. The intricate machinery of the heart and the complicated feedback mechanisms are
fascinating to me. I think we have a lot of room for improvement in the way we design arrhythmia treatments if we
start letting the physiology drive us and that is why I have continued to work on cardiac applications. When I first
came to graduate school, I became acutely aware of how much I didn’t know. I think the first time that I asked a
thought-provoking question of a visiting professor at one of our lab meetings instead of just a clarification question
was a pivotal moment for me to believe I could do this. After that, it wasn’t long before I started designing experi-
ments for questions I personally wanted to answer in addition to those that my PI [Igor Efimov] suggested.

One of the most important things I have learned at Wash.U. is when addressing a problem, think as
simple as possible and as complex as necessary. I think Dr. Rudy said something like that in the first class I took
with him my second semester here but it took a couple years of overcomplicating or oversimplifying a solution for it
to sink in. Another big lesson for me was how to fail with grace. A lot of experiments don’t work. Sometimes
hypotheses turn out wrong and your initial ideas don’t pan out.

24 | CBAC Center Heartbeat